Texas didn’t take FSU’s spot. Alabama did. Texas is seeded ahead of Alabama in the playoff because of their win by 10 points in Tuscaloosa earlier this season.
As for Alabama, they beat the team thought to be the best in the country. Florida State’s offense looked awful without Travis versus both Florida and Louisville. Without Travis, they are not as good as Texas nor Alabama, and he wasn’t returning in January. Unlike the NCAA Tournament where the committee could have moved Florida State down in seeding, the College Football Playoff currently only has room for four teams, and there were two conference champions with one loss each that are more complete teams than a Jordan Travis-less Florida State team.
I’ve always been for a system where conference champions get in the playoff with a few at-large teams getting the final spots. I’m glad the playoff will have 12 teams starting next year.
Heard a radio guy bemoan this being an “invitational” instead of a real “playoff.” Well no shit. It’s a system that intentionally omits at least one conference every year. It’s inherently “unfair.” But as was uttered multiple times in The Wire, “deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
There’s also the problem that CFB has no central leadership and no common structure - even beyond P5 and G5 every conference does their own thing - memberships differ from 10 to 16, some use divisions and some don’t, some play and eight-game schedule and others play nine.
IMO the closest analog CFB has in sports is soccer. And while I don’t think you’re every going to see uniformity across the conferences, especially as they continue to change via realignment, I’d be intrigued to see playoff representation based on a coefficient system.
World Cup qualifying gives (gave - not sure how the expanded 2026 WC will work) CONCACAF 3.5 spots in a 32 team field. Champions League gives the EPL four spots in a 32 team field. Surely it wouldn’t be too difficult to develop a formula that gives each conference a set number of spots in a 12-team field, and that formula can change year-to-year or every-X-years, based on changing conference strength.
On top of representation it also impacts the likelihood of individual teams to receive better draws in tournaments, though I’m not sure how well that would work in CFB.
This idea has merit. The “half slots” would expand tge playoffs, though, unless treated like another round of “play-ins”. I think this plus some form of relegation would be interesting to see.
I agree 100% the current system is unfair. All Power 5 conference champions should make the field, and if I were on the committee, Texas and Florida State would have been in, and Alabama would have been out.
That said, Jordan Travis was the Seminoles’ starting quarterback and their most important player. He was in the Heisman conversation for a reason. I watched Tate Rodemaker play against Florida, and Brock Glenn start against Louisville. Based on those two games, I highly doubt Florida State goes undefeated this season without Jordan Travis starting the first 10 games of the season. Brock Glenn threw for under 60 yards against Louisville, who had just given up 38 points to 6-5 Kentucky the week before. 5-6 Florida had Florida State down 12-0 until they called a trick play that backfired and Florida State mustered just enough offense to win the game.
If Texas had lost Quinn Ewers for the season against
Oklahoma State or Alabama lost Jalen Milroe for the season against Georgia, they would have not made the field even if they still found a way to win their conference championship games, either.
Because you’re not an SEC schlong gorveler. Not yet anyway. But the committee is, and I still maintain that there was no way on God’s little acre that they were leaving out the SEC champion. FSU’s QB situation gave them a “whew, dodged a bullet there” excuse. Yeah, they ranked Texas 3rd and Alabama 4th, but that’s neither here nor there. Their collective anus was starting to bleed from the puckering, until FSU struggled.
Yeah, can’t really have the half-slots. Not unless you did something like SEC gets the extra over the Big 12 this year based on a pre-determined tiebreaker, which would then default back to the Big 12 the following year… or it’s an every-other-year thing (in the spirit of true objectivity I’d hate it to default only to rankings all the time, as those are easily manipulated).
It’s not too dissimilar from TXHSFB’s system where if two teams meet twice in the playoffs within a five-year span (I think it’s five) and one team won the flip for home or home-neitral before the first meeting, the other team automatically gets it the next time.
I’m never going to be an SEC schlong gorveler. I understand why Texas is making the move, but I would have much rather joined the Pac 12 over a decade ago, instead.
I like the notion of a big playoff (bigger than 12, with play in games and byes). Conferences would be much less important in that scenario. Which is a major reason it’ll never happen.
I’m no fan of treating all conferences equally in representation. I can’t think of any year where they are equal in quality, and I therefore see no reason to grant them equal representation. I’d give the winner of each power 4 conference an automatic spot, but that’s all each conference should be guaranteed.
The Pac-2 is the most wild outcome yet- the universities leaving carelessly forgot about the the contractual payments from the broadcast rights for the Men’s Basketball tournament. The two remaining have sole claim over tens of millions of dollars. As those two move forward, they are agreeing only to schedule with the MWC as opposed to joining, due to milking the de facto “lottery” payments.