Heist of the Century: The 2023 College Football Playoffs
With the College Playoff Rankings, we have just witnessed the greatest robbery in athletics. Florida State is now the only Power-5 undefeated team to not make the playoffs in the history of college football. Instead, the commission in their infinite wisdom selected both Texas and Alabama ahead of Florida State. While both are champions of their respective conferences, both have suffered a loss. So, again in their infinite wisdom, they selected two teams with blemishes over a team with a perfect record. To ignore Florida State not only does a disservice to the meritocratic nature of sports but the history of college football.
In the good old days before the playoff and the BCS, the national champion was selected through an anarchic process that culminated at the end of the bowl season. Why was this the process? The first and foremost reason was geography. Due to the number of colleges and the size of the nation, it was impossible to have a centralized sport so it was possible and conceivable to have multiple teams that “earned” the national championship. While the bowls were created to have the best teams from different regions or conferences play each other, it did not guarantee that the best teams would play each other. This led to scenarios where multiple teams could claim they were champions from different pollsters. The more legitimate and respected the pollster, the stronger the claim. However, this was not the only reason. Before Oklahoma vs NCAA was decided by the Supreme Court, 20% of teams were independent. With a lack of organization, it increased the chance of more teams being successful and made conference championships less important. Due to a lack of centralization in both conferences and the bowl system, it left a system wherein multiple teams could claim a national championship within any single season.
However, there have been many changes since this era of college football. The first was the rise of conferences and then the rise of larger conferences (Guglielmello 2023). When TV revenue was handled by the NCAA, being in a conference was not necessary. With the Supreme Court ending the NCAA monopoly on TV revenue, schools themselves needed to negotiate with the TV networks for their revenue. To increase their bargaining power, it was better to be in a conference. Due to this, the number of independents declined by half in a decade and would decrease further with only one important independent remaining today (Notre Dame). However, for our purposes, the first important change in deciding the national champion was the BCS.
The BCS, Bowl Championship Series, was both a revolutionary and minor change within college football. Bowls would still decide who would be the national champion, but now the priority would be having the best two teams play each other. Unlike before when the #1 ranked team did not have to play the #2 ranked team, the BCS would ensure that these teams would play. This should have ended the controversy, right? No. The issue changed from the best teams not playing each other to who are the best teams. Some years, there were three undefeated champions in the most important conferences. Some years, there were three or four teams with similar resumes when there were two possible spots for the championship. In these situations, it would be impossible to settle the debate of the best team in the country when teams could claim they were the best and were excluded from the process. So in the end, this reduced the number of teams that could claim they were national champions but did not exclude the possibility of a shared championship.
This paved the way for the playoff, which should allow enough college football teams to compete for the title in order to decide who is the actual national champion. The only situation, in theory, that this would be impossible would be if all Power-5 conferences had undefeated champions (not to mention an undefeated Notre Dame as well). In this case, there would be 5 or 6 serious contenders but only 4 spots. However, the likelihood of this happening is minimal and has not happened in the current playoff era. In fact, one could argue that before 2023, the playoff eliminated the number of claimed championships. Except for UCF, which hailed from a non-Power-5 conference, the national champion has not been disputed. Sure, there were always controversies for the 3rd and 4th spots in the playoff, but the teams left out would not be able to claim the national championship with their own merits. The possible exception to this rule was the exclusion of an undefeated non-Power-5 conference team, but among the strongest conferences, the controversy was a minimum. Then the college playoff selection committee inexplicably created the biggest controversy in the last year of four playoff teams.
Heading into the conference championship week, most analysts said there were 8 teams left with a chance in the playoffs. These were the eight teams and the situation they needed to make the playoff (Cooper 2023):
1 — Georgia (12–0)
Win against Alabama in the SEC championship and Georgia is in.
2 — Michigan (12–0)
Win against Iowa in the Big-10 Championship and Michigan is in.
3 — Washington (12–0)
Win the rematch with Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship and Washington is in.
4 — Florida State (12–0)
Win against Louisville in the ACC Championship and Florida State is in*.
These were the top 4 teams and the remaining undefeated teams left in the nation. The rest of the four all have one loss.
5 — Oregon (11–1)
Win against Washington in the Pac-12 Championship would avenge their only loss. It is likely a win would be enough to secure a spot.
6 — Ohio State (11–1)
Due to their loss against Michigan, Ohio State would be the only team idle during Championship Week. To make the playoffs, Florida State, Oregon, and Texas would likely need to lose. In other words, unless there was anarchy, Ohio State would not make the playoffs.
7 — Texas (11–1)
Winning the Big 12 championship against Oklahoma State would likely not be enough to gain a playoff seat. But, if Alabama beats Georgia or if Michigan or Florida State would lose, a victory should be enough. Their loss is to a team that is not currently in the playoff picture as they lost to #12 Oklahoma on a neutral field game that was decided by one possession.
8 — Alabama (11–1)
If they beat Georgia in the SEC Championship game, they would likely need one of Michigan, Texas, or Florida State to lose. If the committee had to decide between Texas or Alabama, Texas would likely be selected since Texas beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
The results were as follows. Michigan, Washington, and Florida State handled their business and won. Alabama beat Georgia. Texas won the Big 12 title and Oregon lost their second game effectively ending their chances in the playoff. So if we were to exclude Ohio State, here are the final six teams:
Michigan 13–0
Washington 13–0
Florida State 13–0
Texas 12–1 (lost to Oklahoma)
Alabama 12–1 (lost to Texas)
Georgia 12–1 (lost to Alabama)
Three of these teams could claim that every week they played, after 60 minutes they were the best team on the gridiron. Three of these teams could not. Alabama beat Georgia on a neutral field and Texas beat Alabama on Alabama’s field. If Alabama and Georgia were excluded from the field, neither of them could claim they were the best team after the national championship was played. If Texas wins the national championship, neither Alabama nor Georgia could claim they were better due to either simple logic or through transitive property. If another team beat Texas in the playoffs, well using the same logic, Alabama nor Georgia could claim they were the best.
However, both Alabama and Georgia are in the SEC, one of the two conferences that emerging as superconferences (Guglielmello 2023) and partners of ESPN. ESPN by the way has the rights to the playoff games and the selection show. By the end of the show, the teams selected were Michigan, Washington, Texas, and Alabama. Florida State was not selected with reasons given such as they are not the four “best” teams in the country especially since their quarterback got injured; this is despite the fact they were ranked as one of the four best teams in the prior week. The injured quarterback said in response, “I wish my leg broke earlier in the season so y’all could see this team is much more than a quarterback”. When a kid in college wishes for an injury to have happened earlier in the season so that his team could be selected for the playoffs is the moment you realize how messed up a situation this is.
Florida State’s reward for a perfect season is not the playoffs but Georgia in the Orange Bowl. If Florida State loses, there will be no controversy over who is the best team in the country. But if Florida State beats Georgia, a team that lost twice in three years and the number-one team for most of the 2023 season, then they have a legitimate claim to be the best team in the country. In fact, this year could be the first year since the end of the BCS when two power-five conference teams can claim the national championship.
The reason for the playoff was to eliminate shared national championships. In the end, the best teams play each other and they decide who is the best team based on the results on the field. If Alabama and Georgia were excluded from the playoff this year, there would be no question that the best team in the country was one of the four teams in the playoff. However, Florida State was not selected; therefore in January of 2024, we could have two teams claiming the national championship. The selection committee has failed in its one purpose. But is much worse than that when we dig a little deeper. The selection committee selected Alabama to be in the playoffs because they wanted an SEC team in the playoffs. Let us look at an alternative universe where Georgia beats Alabama. Georgia would be #1 and Michigan and Washington would be in the playoffs as well. The final spot would be between Florida State and Texas. There is no doubt in my mind that if the playoff committee was between undefeated Florida State or a one-loss Texas, they would have selected Florida State. In fact, the only likely reason Texas was selected above Florida State is because they could have not legitimately selected Alabama without selecting Texas. And they could not have legitimately selected Georgia without selecting Alabama. The only possible way they could have selected an SEC school into the playoffs in 2023 was by robbing Florida State. While we are thankful the playoff expands next year so the selection committee cannot steal from an undefeated Power-5 conference team, it is a shame that greed, and not results, was the deciding factor in the 2023 college football playoffs.
