What the Florida State Snub Means for College Football's Future

Florida State Dominates*

Why do you love sports?

Is it the uncertainty? The meritocracy? The authenticity? The community? The greatness of human expression portrayed through physical artistry?

Why does Boo Corrigan love sports? Why does James Pitaro love sports? Why does Tony Petitti love sports?

Probably not for the same reasons you do.

Florida State played 13 games this season. It won all 13, including home victories versus 7-5 Duke and 7-5 Miami, road rallies at No. 22 Clemson, at bowl-eligible Boston College, and at arch rival Florida, and - most impressively - neutral site successes against No. 13 LSU and No. 15 Louisville for the ACC championship. It wasn’t the world’s most difficult docket, but it was a power-five slate that provided the ‘Noles with a strength of schedule (55) on par with Oregon (52), a team that would be in the playoff in place of Washington if it had been the victor in Vegas.

There was nothing more that Florida State could have done. The Seminoles cannot control the strength of their league. They can’t guarantee the health of their players. Like every other team in the country, all they can do is beat the teams in front of them. And they did.

This is not the first time this has happened to an undefeated conference champion - Boise State has the scars to prove it - but this is the first time this has happened to an undefeated power-conference champion in the playoff era. Not since Auburn in 2004 has an undefeated power-conference champion been denied the opportunity to compete for a national title. Back then, only two teams were afforded access. One decade later, the count doubled, and we were assured that something like that could never happen again. Another decade later, the same thing happened again.

How that circle was filled illustrates the next phase of college football.

Corrigan, the CFP Selection Committee Chair, gave his group’s explanation for excluding the ACC’s top dog to Rece Davis shortly after the selections were announced.

“Florida State is a different team than they were through the first 11 weeks,” he said. “An incredible season, but as you look at who they are as a team right now witthout Jordan Travis, without the offensive dynamic that he brings to it, they are a different team.”

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Corrigan is correct. Florida State is not the team it was a few weeks ago; Travis is an outstanding player, and given what we saw on the field against Florida and Louisville mixed with a dose of logic, it’s impossible to argue otherwise.

You Are What Your Record Says You Are?

But that’s not what sports are about. Logic would have dictated that the 2017 Eagles were in trouble after Carson Wentz tore his ACL in Week 14 of that season, then Nick Foles lifted the franchise to its first and only Super Bowl victory. When Drew Bledsoe, who had just signed a 10-year, $103 million deal in the 2001 offseason, suffered a lung injury in Week 2 that forced some sixth-round pick to fill in for him - the Patriots and Tom Brady put together one of the greatest sporting dynasties of all time. Operating with the third quarterback on its depth chart when the season started, Ohio State waxed Wisconsin, upset Alabama, and outdid Oregon en route to the initial College Football Playoff title in 2014.

Sports are about what happens on the field. Don’t believe me? Go check how much cash ESPN is shoveling out for live broadcasting rights while laying off reporters, editors, and its less-lucrative talking heads. People want to watch the real action, not contrived drama, because sports are about what happens on the field.

It is also true that people want to watch the “big brands.” The same ratings that prove the supremacy of live sports prove that the masses are more inclined to pay attention to the names they consider to be the most compelling

Therein lies the impasse that has been long overcome in college football. This is a sport that has nakedly shown its blue-faced colors, with veneers so thin that P. Sherman of 42 Wallaby Way would be jealous.

This is the final year of the four-team playoff. It is coincidentally the final year of the Pac-12 as it’s been known and the final year before the two colossal conferences grow to 16 and 18 members, respectively. Of the four teams the committee chose to compete in its invitational this winter, all four will play in the Big Ten or SEC in 2024 and beyond.

Next season marks the introduction of the 12-team playoff, college football‘s latest revolution promised as the sport’s next savior, much like the Bowl Coalition, Bowl Alliance, BCS, and four-team playoff before it. More teams means more access for more programs across the country. The little guy will get his shot.

Florida State is the only team ranked in the top 12 of the committee’s final poll that is not a current or future member of the Big Ten or SEC. In all, 15 of the 25 included teams fit that bill. After the Seminoles at No. 5, soon-to-be Big 12 member Arizona is the best of the rest at No. 14.

That Florida State can be painted as the little guy displays how far college football has flipped on its head. This is the reality we have sprinted toward: if you’re not in the Big Ten or SEC, you’re a little guy. Not even three national championships, 45 consensus All-Americans, the 12th-best all-time winning percentage, and three Heisman winners can save you.

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For how long do you think Florida State will accept its second-class status while it watches Florida drown in dollars thanks to its SEC citizenry? The Seminoles have the history, fan base, and “brand” to be the big bully on the block. They will not stand idly by as the upper echelon leaves them behind.

The message that was heard loud and clear in Tallahassee made its way to Clemson, too. It was also delivered to Chapel Hill, Blacksburg, Salt Lake City, and all other headquarters that are situated outside of the Big Ten and SEC footprints. Any university that wants a football program that competes on the biggest stages for the biggest prizes with the biggest payouts has one of two paths to pick from, and they aren’t in the Big 12 or ACC.

This is no new direction, merely a massive step in the sprint to super conferences that Boo Corrigan, James Pitaro, Tony Petitti, and suits nationwide have instigated. Well before this snub, Florida State has been vocal about its intentions. The Pac-12 already had its death scheduled. The Big 12 was on the brink of the same fate not long ago and now must stretch from Florida to Arizona to keep its doors open.

This latest stab into the tortured body of what college football was changes nothing for its inevitable demise, just shrinks the timeline.

We’ll be in the Hudson River before the end of the decade. It won’t matter what it will take - Florida State, Clemson, and anyone else in the ACC that can attract a life raft will leap for one well before the Grant of Rights expires in 2036. The Big 12 lacks needle-movers, and the ACC will be in the same boat post-poach. What happens to the remnants won’t matter, because they won’t have the cash to compete.

An Eventual Split

Eventually - and it won’t take long - Ohio State, Michigan, USC, Alabama, Texas, and Georgia will act on the fact that they are responsible for significantly larger pieces of the pies than Indiana, Northwestern, Rutgers, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, and Arkansas. Accept unequal revenue sharing, or we secede.

Once that ultimatum has been issued, it’s over. If the “smaller brands” reject, then the schism is immediate. If they acquiesce, then their deaths are prolonged, not paused, as the big boys bleed them dry until they can use their entropy as an excuse. The consequences don’t change.

One might imagine that the sport’s shift in emphasis from regional to national competition would mean that the method for national title determination was clear of controversy, yet here we are. The same subjectivity and screw jobs that the aggrieved decried in the BCS and before still occur, but now with more preferential treatment and closed-door dealings.

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The focus on nationalizing college football has made the sport more lucrative for the small number of people who are directly in line to benefit, and its inability to deliver on its one sporting solution - an objective national champion - speaks to its failure to make the sport better.

So, now we sit on the precipice of NFL Jr., located mostly in the South and Midwest with a few West Coast sprinkles, and we still can’t even promise a power-conference team that a league title and 13-0 record is enough to be viewed as deserving of a shot to declare yourself the nation’s best in the eyes of the only people who matter. It’s the corporatism of the NFL without the objectivity the league’s model brings.

What was it all for?

The same people who made this decision, will make the decisions when the playoff expands to 12. They will give us the same reasoning for their choices. They will tell us they are doing it for the goodness of the sport. They will speak from atop a tower of treasure.

Forgive me for mistrusting their motives.