Betting lines for all the major-college postseason football games came out Monday, and Georgia’s a 14-point favorite over Florida State in the Orange Bowl, underscoring an unpopular point of view; The College Football Playoff committee has no reason to apologize.
By reading or listening to the hysterics on Sunday, you would have thought the 13 committee members had committed a high crime or misdemeanor — strike that; a high crime or felony — for not including the Seminoles in the four-team bracket for the national championship.
FSU not only should not be in the CFP semifinals; the Seminoles shouldn’t even be the first team out. I’m one of 62 voters on the panel for The Associated Press Top 25. Our deadline to submit ballots this week was 8:30 a.m. Sunday, allowing time for The AP Top 25 to come out before the CFP ranking.
Here’s how I ordered the six teams in question: 1. Michigan, 2. Washington, 3. Texas, 4. Alabama, 5. Georgia, 6. Florida State. If there was angst over whether to move one team higher, that team was Georgia, which slid from No. 1 after having its 29-game win streak snapped Saturday in the SEC championship game. If you believe the Bulldogs are one of the four best teams, there’s a case to be made.
Not, however, for Florida State, whose 13-0 record was built by running through the ACC, easily the weakest of the power-five conferences this year. The Seminoles can’t control that, but it makes the point no less true and no less damaging. Their best victories came against a couple of pretty good teams in LSU and Louisville (CFP’s No. 13 and No. 15), a down-year Clemson, chronic underachieving Miami and Duke.
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For the people incredulous about FSU’s exclusion, a talking point was that the Seminoles beat two SEC teams! True, except it fails to mention one was Florida, which…
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