The final season of the four-team College Football Playoff turned out to be the most controversial with an unprecedented snub.
Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama were selected Sunday and Florida State became the first unbeaten Power Five conference champion to be excluded from the field.
Michigan will face Alabama in the Rose Bowl, Washington will play Texas in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1 and the winners will meet for the national championship Jan. 8 in Houston.
Before the CFP grows to 12 next year – an expansion that was delayed by a year because of infighting among the conference commissioners who manage the postseason system – the selection committee faced the toughest decision in the 10-year history of the format.
“Florida State is a different team than they were through the first 11 weeks,” explained Boo Corrigan, the selection committee chairman who is also the athletic director at North Carolina State, Florida State’s Atlantic Coast Conference rival.
The Seminoles (13-0) lost star quarterback Jordan Travis to a season-ending injury two weeks ago, but continued to win with a backup and then a third-string quarterback. The committee, though, is instructed to judge teams for what they are heading into the playoff and decided FSU without Travis is not among the best four in the country.
“I am disgusted and infuriated with the committee’s decision today to have what was earned on the field taken away because a small group of people decided they knew better than the results of the games. What is the point of playing games?” Florida State coach Mike Norvell said.
Whichever team was left out had a good argument to get in. That created unprecedented controversy and the committee passed over FSU to pick Alabama, which upset Georgia to win the Southeastern Conference championship, and Big 12 champion Texas, which beat the Crimson Tide on the road in September.
The SEC had never missed the playoff. Alabama, which is in for the eighth time, kept that streak alive. The Crimson Tide have won the playoff three times, most recently in 2020.
Texas would have been just the second Power Five team with only one loss to be left out. Instead, the Longhorns will be making their first appearance in the CFP in their last season as a member of the Big 12. Texas moves to the SEC next year.
Texas and Alabama were ranked seventh and eighth, respectively, in the committee’s penultimate rankings and are now the first teams to jump from outside the top six in the second-to-last rankings into the playoff field. Georgia became the first team to enter championship weekend No. 1 and fail to make the field.
“We had eight really good teams this year, somewhat of a unique year in the last year of the four,” Corrigan said.
Big Ten champion Michigan is making its third straight appearance in the CFP, still looking for its first playoff victory. The Wolverines, who have stayed unbeaten amid an NCAA investigation into allegations of in-person scouting and sign-stealing, are the favourites to win the national title, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.
Michigan, looking for its first national title since 1997, opened as a 1 1/2-point favourite against Alabama. The Tide have won six national titles under coach Nick Saban.
Washington is in the CFP for the second time, breaking the Pac-12′s playoff drought after six years, and doing so the year before it leaves the conference for the Big Ten. The Huskies opened as a 4 1/2-point underdog to Texas and former Washington coach Steve Sarkisian. The two played last season in the Alamo Bowl and Washington won.