Feldman: What the CFP committee bought fallacious in its ultimate 4-team area

Next yr, all this College Football Playoff arguing shall be moot with the CFP increasing to 12 groups. Arguing over Nos. 3, 4 and 5 could be very totally different than 10, 11, 12 and 13. You lose your advantage of the doubt if you lose video games. Even within the SEC.

But this yr continues to be a four-team area, and with so many variables factoring into the choice, there’s a lot to dissect. And to state it plainly: the College Football Playoff committee bought it fallacious. College soccer has, or no less than it used to have — up till proper now — the most effective common season in sports activities as a result of the video games mattered most. We have a smaller pattern measurement on this sport than in every other.

To omit an undefeated 13-0 Florida State workforce in a Power 5 convention was the fallacious choice.

Michigan and Washington, each undefeated with top-10 wins, have been the simple ones. The downside for the College Football Playoff committee was that there have been three groups with official arguments for the ultimate two slots.

Sorry, Georgia. You didn’t win your convention title, and on this format, that has to rely for one thing.

Booger McFarland just isn’t completely happy that Alabama bought into the CFP over an undefeated Florida State workforce.

“To me, this is a travesty to the sport…One team has a loss, and that’s Alabama. One doesn’t in Florida State.” pic.twitter.com/3rhBvvpT1D

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 3, 2023

Alabama and the SEC are the proverbial elephant on this room. Nick Saban is the best coach of all time, and to me, this yr was the best teaching job he’s ever executed in-season. His workforce bought whipped at house by Texas in Week 2 and didn’t look any higher scuffling with a middling USF workforce the next week. But Jalen Milroe stored making massive strides and when it mattered most, he and the Tide made sufficient performs to knock off a Bulldogs workforce that wasn’t anyplace close to as dominant because it was in its earlier two title seasons.

The downside for Alabama — and the SEC — is the accomplice they’re about to usher in: Texas did beat Alabama convincingly in Tuscaloosa. That occurred, and there was nothing fluky about it.

The Longhorns, 12-1, have been the category of the Big 12. There wasn’t a second-best workforce within the Big 12 this yr, however Oklahoma State beat Oklahoma, the workforce Texas stumbled in opposition to and, as anticipated, Texas hammered the Cowboys Saturday. Remember, this was an Oklahoma State workforce that went 9-3 and had misplaced by a mixed rating of 78-10 in opposition to South Alabama and UCF. That wasn’t going to assist Texas’ trigger, however can we simply overlook {that a} week in the past Alabama barely escaped in opposition to an Auburn workforce that bought blown out at house the week earlier than by New Mexico State, 31-10?

The greater difficulty was with Florida State, the 13-0 Seminoles from the ACC. As everyone knows, FSU misplaced star quarterback Jordan Travis two weeks in the past. The Seminoles’ backup Tate Rodemaker, who had led them to a comeback win over Louisville a yr in the past when Travis had gotten damage, didn’t look nice within the regular-season finale at arch-rival Florida. He additionally sustained a concussion.

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips calls it “unfathomable” that Florida State was not noted. “Florida State deserved better. College football deserved better.”

Statement from him: pic.twitter.com/3BYozQOSog

— Andrew Carter (@_andrewcarter) December 3, 2023

FSU’s third-stringer, Brock Glenn, had a shaky outing within the ACC Championship Game, however the protection was dominant. Led by Braden Fiske and Jared Verse, the Seminoles had 14 TFLs and 7 sacks and have become the primary workforce in 5 years to carry a Jeff Brohm offense below 200 complete yards. Not so coincidentally, that very same FSU protection started the yr by dominating LSU and the SEC’s largest star, Jayden Daniels, 45-24, and held the SEC and the nation’s No. 1 offense to its worst efficiency of the season.

FSU was the one workforce that held Daniels below 60 % passing in a sport. Daniels ran for nearly 100 yards much less (99) in opposition to the Noles than when he performed the Crimson Tide.

The CFP rankings typically devolve into an argument over “best” versus “most deserving.” Best is often the get-out-of-jail free card at any time when your workforce loses or has a nasty loss that it may’t clarify. Similar to the nonsense of, “Well, Vegas would make so-and-so more than a touchdown favorite against them.” Great. But inform that to Washington. The Huskies have been virtually a double-digit underdog in opposition to Oregon final week, a workforce they’d already crushed this yr. … Well, the Huskies beat the Ducks once more.

I get it. The SEC has been probably the most dominant convention in school soccer for the previous twenty years. But this yr hasn’t been like these different years in case you’ve been paying consideration. It’s merely been a down yr for the SEC. The ACC truly went 6-4 in opposition to the SEC this yr. If this was a one-loss FSU workforce, I’d say the Seminoles didn’t earn their method in, however they did. Texas shouldn’t have been not noted both for a workforce it beat in its personal place.

As colleague David Ubben wrote Saturday evening, the video games should matter. What’s the purpose of taking part in them if we’re going to try to rationalize them away?

(Top picture Florida State: John Byrum / Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Images)