Disgraceful case of bias dooms FSU’s title hopes
In the world of college football, corrupted by TV money, a willful failure undermined a heroic accomplishment.
It’s the wrong that was done to Florida State University’s football program after the ‘Noles completed an undefeated 13-0 season despite losing both their star quarterback and his backup to injuries for two critical final games.
There could not have been a more inspirational accomplishment against adversity. But a gaggle of 14 unelected people meeting in a closed hotel room decided their subjective opinions were better than an objective measure of comparative wins and losses. That was the College Football Playoff selection committee, which chose one-loss Alabama, not FSU, to compete for the national championship along with Michigan, Texas and Washington.
“UNBEATEN AND UNCHOSEN” shouted the banner headline in the New York Times sports section. It captured the shock felt by many fans and commentators across the country along with FSU players, coaches, alumni, fans, political leaders and indeed people all over Florida. All felt the sting of the committee’s bias. (Full disclosure: Two members of this editorial board have degrees from FSU).
Florida politicians displayed the kind of outrage we seldom see on weightier issues, like record-high insurance rates. Gov. Ron DeSantis earmarked $1 million in taxpayer money for a possible lawsuit by FSU. Sen. Rick Scott demanded “answers and transparency” from the selection committee. CFO Jimmy Patronis, an avid FSU grad, demanded to know how committee members voted. Former president Donald Trump, irresponsible as usual, said without evidence that his rival DeSantis was to blame for a “really bad lobbying effort.”
‘SEC Selection Committee’
But nobody in the Southeastern Conference was griping. The SEC seems to have a secret entitlement to a playoff spot every year.
“Good to know that these last four months didn’t matter. That results on the field don’t matter,” wrote Nancy Armour, a USA Today sports columnist. She accused SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey of “reminding anyone who would listen that it’s an unwritten rule one of the four playoff spots is reserved for the SEC.”
An SEC team has in fact appeared in every playoff series, and FSU got rolled by the Crimson Tide when ‘Bama beat Georgia Saturday to win the SEC title. The snub of FSU, a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), marks the first time in the 10-year history of the national championship playoff that an unbeaten Power Five champion was excluded.
“A travesty to the sport,” ESPN analyst Booger McFarland said.
‘I thought results matter’
But the most poignant, penetrating and damning comment came from Jordan Travis, the Heisman-worthy FSU quarterback who had to watch the games against arch-rival Florida and Louisville for the ACC championship from the sidelines. He tweeted that he wished he had broken his leg earlier in the season “so y’all could see this team is much more than the quarterback. I thought results matter, 13-0.“
That’s sportsmanship. That’s character. It puts the selection committee to shame.
That this will be the last time a conference winner is excluded — a 12-team playoff begins next year — is no excuse nor any consolation for the victims of this crass decision.
To rub it in, the chairman and spokesman of the selection committee, Boo Corrigan, is athletic director at North Carolina State, an FSU rival in the ACC. His excuses were unconvincing.
“In the eyes of the committee, Florida State is a different team without Jordan Travis,” Corrigan rationalized. “One of the things we do consider is player availability, and our job is to rank the best teams. In the final decision looking at that, it was Alabama at 4 and Florida State at 5.”
The essence of teamwork
So? Any team is a different team when it loses someone to injury. The essence of teamwork is to compensate for that. FSU had earned the right to play with the nation’s best.
“You could make the case that Florida State is so good that it won a Power 5 conference championship game with a true freshman quarterback,” wrote
Ari Wasserman, a senior writer for The Athletic.
Tate Rodemaker stepped up admirably in Travis’ place against Florida, and when that game left him in concussion protocol, the third-string quarterback, freshman Brock Glenn, filled in capably enough. The team rallied around him. The defense played a game for the ages, allowing only two field goals to a Louisville team that had averaged 30 points a game.
Moreover, Rodemaker would have been cleared to play in time for the playoffs, as he will be for the Orange Bowl game against Georgia in Miami on Dec. 30. The selection committee knew that.
This snub could have unfortunate longterm consequences beyond the shortterm financial loss to FSU and Coach Mike Norvell, who had bonuses riding on making the playoffs.
FSU and some other ACC teams have been openly dissatisfied with the television revenue the league pays them and have been bruiting about demanding more or bolting for the SEC or the Big Ten. Both of those conferences have been poaching teams, as the ACC did when it lured California and Stanford from the PAC-12 and Southern Methodist from the American Athletic Conference. It has become the Atlantic Coast Conference in name only, while the PAC-12 is down to two teams. Enough already.
The prospect of the SEC and Big Ten becoming super-sized leagues, to the detriment of the others, is not good for fans or the country. It’s driven by the money side of big-time college sports that has become all but unmoored from the fundamental purpose of higher education. For FSU to quit the ACC would cost the school a $120 million buyout. It would all have to be squeezed out of wealthy boosters, and not a penny of it would educate anyone.
Granted, the four-team playoff regime is ending disgracefully. But dismembering the ACC would not compensate for that.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@ sun-sentinel.com.