In the final year of the four team format of college football, the race for the top four seeds was closer and more controversial than ever. With three teams finishing as undefeated power five conference champions, Michigan, Washington, Florida State, you would expect all three teams to make the playoffs. However the selection committee shocked the nation when they revealed that the 12-1 Texas Longhorns would take the three seed and 12-1 Alabama would take the four seed, leaving undefeated ACC champions Florida State out of the playoffs.
This outraged the Seminoles, as they where projected to make the Playoffs all season long, until their star quarterback Jordan Travis suffered a season ending leg injury in week 13 of the season. In my opinion, there is no right answer given the circumstances.
On one hand, Florida State had a playoff worthy resume. On the other hand, both Alabama and Texas have looked like stronger teams recently, and after TCU got manhandled in front of the entire country last year, the committee has a good reason to only include the most competitive teams possible. I believe that this is an extremely unfortunate situation for the Seminoles, but we have to consider that if they did get the four seed over Alabama, they likely would’ve gotten embarrassed by Michigan. I think that this would be the most likely outcome, had they made the playoffs. The Seminoles have been matched up against another school who got the short end of the stick, the Georgia Bulldogs. The Bulldogs saw their historic 29 game win streak come to an end against Alabama in the SEC championship. Georgia was ranked number one all season, but dropped five spots to the six seed after their only loss on championship weekend. This is the farthest a one seed has dropped after losing a conference championship in the playoff era. I believe that Georgia got a worse outcome than FSU, because we know the Bulldogs would’ve been extremely competitive in the playoff and likely could have three peated, a feat we haven’t seen in college football since the 1930s.
While it is unfortunate that neither of these deserving schools where rewarded for their success, I think that Texas and Alabama being rewarded for head to head success is a good thing. In what might be the game of the year for college football, the Longhorns took down the Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa. This is the first time Alabama has lost at home since Joe Burrow and the LSU Tigers beat them in 2019. The Longhorns where with on the outside looking in heading into championship weekend, but after Alabama beat Georgia, it made a case for both Texas and Alabama to make the playoffs. Rewarding Texas for scheduling a difficult opponent is a great thing in my opinion, because top tier schools like Georgia rarely play any other power 5 teams, much less a number 3 ranked contender during their non conference schedule. By rewarding this scheduling, the committee is encouraging teams to schedule harder, more competitive non conference matchups, which will result in better, more exciting, and more important ranked match ups for fans.
Overall it is unfortunate that we have six teams who are all deserving of making the playoffs, but this problem will be solved next year when the twelve team playoff is introduced, and I cannot wait to how that will unfold. While some will always debate if Alabama should’ve made the playoffs, I think the most glaring evidence was on selection day. A video can be found of the Michigan Wolverine’s reaction to playing Alabama, and the less than enthusiastic response from the Wolverines shows that they where hoping to play Florida State.
