2023 College Football Playoff Selection

College Football Playoff ^ | December 3, 2023 | Staff

[C19fan]

1: Michigan 2: Washington 3: Texas 4: 'Bama

[SomeCallMeTim]

Actually. It’s down to 1.5 points now. The betting public is betting on Bama.

[GunRunner]

To be in the CFP you have to be in the top 4 of 133 FBS teams (ratio is one out of 33). That's way too many varieties of schedules to make record the see-all-do-all in college that it is in the NFL.

You're right, the judging is subjective, arbitrary, and capricious.

The most likely explanation is that decision was made due to financial considerations. It makes no sense otherwise.

[dfwgator]

You're right, the judging is subjective, arbitrary, and capricious.

Just like figure skating.

[Toespi]

Robbed? Ohio State, one loss and to a team being investigated for cheating.

[Ultra Sonic 007]

But it is objectively retarded

No need to get so salty over a playoff involving college football of all things. You may think FSU's strength of schedule was superior or equivalent to Alabama's, but the committee itself stated otherwise. Given how poll-driven and potentially arbitrary beliefs about 'team strength' are in Division I football, speaking about "objective retardation" in this context is rather silly.

But strength of schedule in a Power 5 context should never allow teams with losses to jump over undefeated conference champions.

Unfortunately, that has never been an objective rule that the CFP selection committee ever claimed to officially abide by, at least as far as I'm aware.

They do not take into account the various polls (at least formally) in their rankings. Even when the four-team playoff was announced years ago, they fully admitted that "choosing the teams will include record, strength of schedule, conference championships, and factors that might have influenced a team's play, such as injuries and weather". As far as I know, they have never publicly provided the criteria by which a one-loss team is deemed 'better' than an undefeated team, Power Five or no.

This year, the committee explicitly said that in terms of the final rankings, strength-of-schedule and Jordan Travis's injury were the reasons why they put Alabama ahead of FSU. You may not like it (a lot of people sure don't), but that was their rationale.

(To be fair, I'm not as incensed by this sort of apparent 'arbitrariness' because this is a sport where, in living memory, 'national champions' were determined by polls...which led to numerous situations where two, three, or more teams could justifiably claim they were the #1 team in that year.)

Anyhow, these are the 2023 members of the Selection Committee:

If you're that incensed on Florida State's behalf, take it up with them.

[2harddrive]

“Undefeated FSU was robbed.”

The Disney Corporation owns/controls ESPN, ABC and the SEC network. Those networks are paying the SEC the largest $$$ amount in the history of sports - any sports - and so naturally the SEC expects to have at least one participating team in the CFP. On Saturday that team could no longer be Georgia which put the CFP in a quandary. They had to install Alabama, but how? Luckily for them, Texas has been playing magnificent football for several weeks. So since Georgia was now out, BOTH Texas and Alabama ascended to occupy the final two spots. It had to be that way as they never could have justified moving up Alabama and not Texas due to the road victory by the Longhorns in September. All four spots were then filled, icing out the Seminoles. If you think that there wasn’t enormous pressure placed on the CFP by ESPN/ABC/SEC Network/SEC then you probably also believe the Warren Report.

[Sirius Lee]

If you think that there wasn’t enormous pressure placed on the CFP by ESPN/ABC/SEC Network/SEC then you probably also believe the Warren Report.

Oh, I believe everything you have laid out. The 'Noles can hold their heads high, still.

"HONOR, NOT HONORS"

Hast thou for honor laid ambition down?
⁠⁠Honor, itself, shall be thy sure reward,
⁠⁠A guard more certain than a flaming sword,—
A crown—above a crown.

Since it is honor stays thy lofty quest,
⁠⁠Welcome the high defeat thy spirit dares!
⁠⁠Aye, wear it proudly as a victor wears
The star upon his breast!

[Archie Bunker on steroids]

I'm a Seminole and I can see both sides...not our fault that UF and UM are having off years...we even threw LSU in the schedule and Clemson is usually a top five team...who else should we schedule?. Unfortunately, FSU does not look like a team that would compete in the playoffs... but the defense could give them a shot.
On the other hand, I do wonder though if the deep state is taking a shot at DeSantis with this selection. The deep state is the NCAA..they own the stadiums, networks and are the advertisers. DeSantis went after the ESG requirements in the FLorida retirement plan. Who knows

[Archie Bunker on steroids]

If you think that group is not being influenced, you are mistaken

[dfwgator]

Considering that the current UF President is Anti-Trumper Ben Sasse, I wonder if it was UF in that position, if Trump would have defended them?

[tnlibertarian]

No he won’t. That’s the whole reason FSU was excluded. The quarterback in the Louisville game was 8 of 21 for 55 yards. Completely different, and much worse team, than the team that won the first 11 games. 4 best teams and the postseason FSU team isn’t one of them.

[tnlibertarian]

No he won’t. That’s the whole reason FSU was excluded. The quarterback in the Louisville game was 8 of 21 for 55 yards. Completely different, and much worse team, than the team that won the first 11 games. 4 best teams and the postseason FSU team isn’t one of them.

[tnlibertarian]

Double post and I still couldn’t get it right.

[Ultra Sonic 007]

I didn’t make an argument one way or another as to whether or not they were influenced, or by whom.

My whole point is that those complaining about “arbitrariness” in college football rankings are incredibly late to the party, which is why I don’t get bent out of shape about who does or doesn’t make it in.

People forget that any sort of playoff system was opposed for the longest time for numerous reasons: length of schedule; the sheer logistical difficulties of having a national playoff when you have 100+ teams with only 12 games in the season (not counting conference titles); and (most importantly from my recollection, as it’s been many years) the protests of those who believed a playoff would devalue traditional contests like the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and so on. That’s why whoever the ‘consensus #1’ pick was, in effect, subject to some level of arbitrariness whenever you had years with matching records, and it became a popularity contest (so to speak).

The general move since the BCS and CFP were introduced (from a 2-team playoff, to a 4-team playoff, and finally to a 12-team playoff) has been gradually reducing this sort of arbitrariness inherent to the sport, especially given that the conferences have been shifting and realigning in that timeframe (I mean, after this year, who thinks the Pac-12 is going to remain a Power Five conference?).

This has naturally come at the expense of making the Bowl games less relevant in the grand scheme of things, but I think that was inevitable once the clamor for an expanded playoff became too loud to ignore.

[coalminersson]

3rd string the first sting will be ready for bowl

[GunRunner]

This year, the committee explicitly said that in terms of the final rankings, strength-of-schedule and Jordan Travis's injury were the reasons why they put Alabama ahead of FSU. You may not like it (a lot of people sure don't), but that was their rationale.

I will agree with you. The Selection Committee functions very much like Eric Cartman when he started his Crack Baby Basketball League:

We don't make the rules. We just think them up and write them down.

They made the "rules" so obscure, numerous, and malleable that they could craft whatever matchups they wanted that would yield the greatest financial benefit, and then use propaganda throughout ESPN to push the narrative.

And the propaganda clearly works. Just look at the people here defending Alabama's strength of schedule, even though any honest look at comparing strength of schedule in the context of record totally falls apart.

The idea that you would withhold a team because of injuries on its roster, regardless of whether the injured player was a Heisman candidate or not, is ludicrous and retarded. Alabama once benched it starting QB in the middle of a national championship game!

I can't think of any other instance where this has ever happened in any sport in the history of mankind; denying an entire team a deserved postseason opportunity because of an injury to one player. An injury that they persevered through with a rivalry road win AND a conference championship. It's shameful. It's retarded, and the people defending it sound retarded by defending what is clearly indefensible.

Richard Sherman is 100% right here. It goes against the idea of the underdog, and pads the belly of the fat-cat who skated in because of politics.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0cnTwDx9Xe/

[Ultra Sonic 007]

The idea that you would withhold a team because of injuries on its roster, regardless of whether the injured player was a Heisman candidate or not, is ludicrous and retarded...I can't think of any other instance where this has ever happened in any sport in the history of mankind; denying an entire team a deserved postseason opportunity because of an injury to one player. An injury that they persevered through with a rivalry road win AND a conference championship. It's shameful. It's retarded, and the people defending it sound retarded by defending what is clearly indefensible.

Why are you so heated and calling people 'retarded' over a playoff for Division I college football? Which, I remind you, has had some level of arbitrariness in its rankings going back over a hundred years?

To use your own language: what other sport can you think of which has multiple years showcasing more than one "national champion" or more than one "#1 team"?

The expansion from two teams to four teams was done by a BCS Commission who had little interest in the playoff, so they did it crappily (and only, I would say, to the extent they would avoid being target of further antitrust litigation, especially after the financial scandals related to the 2010 Fiesta Bowl between TCU and Boise State); they were too invested (at the time) in the prestige of the traditional bowl games. I doubt the thought of situations like this one ever crossed their minds. Heck, had it not been for inter-conference disputes arising as a result of Texas and Oklahoma wanting to leave the Big 12 to join the SEC, we might've expanded the playoff by now, and all this drama would have been avoided.

But that's the weird chimera of Division I college football: the only college sport without an NCAA-sanctioned tournament; where, because rankings are determined by more than just one's record, "style points" are always in the back of everyone's mind (because why else do you think there's so much back-and-forth between Alabama and FSU fans now over 'who beat who and by how much'?). What other sport can you think of where teams have a preliminary ranking before the season even begins? What other sport can you think of where ranking placements week-to-week can be determined by what pollsters or a committee *think* about your capacity to beat another team (whether or not you actually play them)?

Compare Division I to the professional equivalent, where style points don't matter in terms of rankings: only whether you win or lose.

It would be something if Division I football had only ever been about your "win-loss" record, and the College Football Playoff was an aberration from that. But it's never just been that; and anyone acting like it's ever been otherwise must have very short memories.

[octex]

I like the way you layed that out so clearly!

Maybe that will hush a lot of the whiners about FSU.

FSU had a great season. Strength of schedule matters.

[Tell It Right]

Agreed. I don't like the pundits and especially the CFP chair saying they downgraded FSU because FSU is on their 3rd string quarterback. IMHO, the fact that they beat Louisville with that quarterback is impressive. That's not a reason to count them as less than a top 4 powerhouse.

But the fact that FSU played only 2 teams good enough to be in the final rankings -- I'm simply not impressed enough with FSU to put them in the top 4.

If I was Michigan I'd hate, hate, hate, hate, hate all of the pundits who are telling Bama that they don't deserve to be in the playoffs. That's what Saban referred to two years ago as yummy rat poison.

[AppyPappy]

“The quarterback in the Louisville game was 8 of 21 for 55 yards.”

Wasn’t that the 3rd string QB because 2nd string was out with a concussion?