THE “REAL WORLD” PROTECTS ALABAMA WHEN FLORIDA STATE WAS PERFECT
The perseverance of the Seminoles was cruelly lost in college football’s politics, which sends a trumpeting Nick Saban to a four-team postseason in a corporate move by the CFP selection committee
The “real world” of college football laughs at tears. It’s badass and ballsy and burdened by billions. The minute Nick Saban hammered the postseason selection committee, after the Southeastern Conference commissioner did the same, you realized the weekend’s best emotions would be left cruelly on a field in Charlotte.
Of course, anyone with a bleeding heart wants Florida State advancing to the playoffs, having overcome a killer injury to Jordan Travis and a cheap shot to the backup quarterback while reaching 13-0 with a third-string freshman. But there are three games left in the season and all will be aired by ESPN, a distressed operation that needs optimum ratings performances for the Jan. 1 semifinals and Jan. 8 final. Never, ever in streaming Hollywood hell does Bob Iger want to anger Saban and the boss, Greg Sankey, when Alabama means traditional numbers boosts … and Florida State does not. Never mind that Saban’s team lost in September to Texas and the Seminoles didn’t lose at all.
Meet the politics of the sport. Alabama is in the final four when compassion, humanity, perseverance, defense and a perfect record favors Florida State, which finished fifth and hits the Capital One Orange Bowl. Alabama continues the SEC streak of having a team in all 10 playoffs. Florida State is the first undefeated Power 5 champion to be eliminated from the postseason, which explains why a 12-team system must happen promptly next year, removing chaos from the sport.
Who doesn’t admire the pomp of Michigan, Texas, Washington and Alabama? That ceremony takes down FSU, which still hangs its sales sign looking for league realignment and hasn’t been upper crust in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Thus, consider this result a specimen of program restoration. Alabama and Texas will be in the SEC, joining Michigan and Washington in the Big Ten. The ACC? Welcome to the “real world,” as Sankey said, when it was suggested his league might be left out of the fray.
“That’s not the real world of college football. Let's go back to like ‘Sesame Street’ so we're really basic — one of these things is not like the other, and that's the Southeastern Conference,” he said. “We have five of the top 15, and our teams are playing everyone in the conference. … The reality: No one has experienced the success in the postseason in the College Football Playoff that we have. So when you put us up actually against the teams, rather than in the committee rooms, we stand alone. And we stand alone this year.”
When Saban ended Georgia’s 29-game winning streak and slowed Kirby Smart’s goal of snagging three straight national titles, he couldn’t help but pop away, too. “If you really want the four best teams to compete, the four most deserving teams that have progressed throughout the season,” Saban said. “We’re not the same team we were when we played Texas. We aren’t the same team as when we played South Florida. So I don’t think we should be considered as that team right now. I think people should look at the whole body of work in terms of what the team was able to accomplish and what they were able to do.”
For his next Aflac commercial, Saban can fire successfully one last time at the committee. He was imposing his almighty will after watching Jalen Milroe, his latest and most unlikely quarterbacking find, make massive plays in a 27-24 triumph in the SEC title game. “We beat the No. 1 team in the country, and they won 29 straight games. If we needed to do something to pass the eye test, I’d guess that probably contributed to it significantly,” Saban said. “I disagreed with them before. I disagreed last year. I know they have a tough job. I know there are a lot of good teams. But I'm just speaking up for our guys who have busted their butt all year to accomplish what they've accomplished. I think it should be recognized.”
We should have known in mid-week that the CFP was shedding Florida State, if necessary. The committee’s executive director, Bill Hancock, was asked if the four best teams — or most deserving — would be selected. “It is best. Most deserving is not anything in the committee's lexicon,” he said. “They are to rank the best teams in order, and that's what they do. Just keep that word in mind, best teams.”
Never mind that committee chair Boo Corrigan said days ago: “Head-to-head is head-to-head, no matter when the game is played, and that’s how we look at it.” Saban survived his head-to-head bouncer anyway. ESPN is serving champagne, realizing its new broadcast deal with the SEC starts — next year!
By Sunday, Corrigan was weeping for the Seminoles and praising Alabama, as all the power people wanted. “That was the decision. Florida State is a different team than they were,” he said of Travis’ departure, a factor in the boundaries. “An incredible season, but without Jordan Travis, they are a different team. Looking at player availability was really important.”
And Saban was placated, off to play Jim Harbaugh in a clash of enemies — look at their history, and how Saban would have run him out of the conference for sign-stealing in other stadiums — in the national semifinals at the Rose Bowl. “It was a tough night. Florida State is certainly a good team to go undefeated in that conference. It’s unfortunate a good team had to be left out, but our team earned the right to be here. Our team is a “team.”
Has Alabama emerged, amid Milroe’s elegant poise, as one of the four best at the moment? Sure. So we’re supposed to toss that stinker loss to the Longhorns, in Tuscaloosa, because it happened three months ago? As the Crimson Tide soared to the core of toppling Georgia, Florida State suffered bad luck. Overcoming adversity is supposed to be a lockdown trait in sports, but not in college football, where the “real world” takes over. Even Smart claimed two SEC teams should qualify. “Look, Bill Hancock said it’s not the most deserving. He said, simply, it’s the best four teams,” he said. “So if you’re going to tell me somebody sitting in that committee room doesn’t think that, that Georgia team is not one of the best four teams, I don’t know if they’re in the right profession. It’s a really good football team. It’s a really talented football team. It’s a really balanced football team. So they have to make that decision. It’s the best four teams.”
What a shame. Mike Norvell was magical in staying unbeaten through extreme tests. Without Travis, the Seminoles wouldn’t hang in against the four qualifying teams. They aren’t one of the four best. They are enormously inspirational, but who cares in the “real world?” of the committee? "I don't think there is a conversation," Norvell said after a 16-6 win over Louisville for the ACC championship. “This is a team that is well-deserving. This is a team that has earned it. This is a team that has showed up consistently and proven that they have what it takes to win.” A day later, he was “disgusted and infuriated,” while athletic director Michael Alford said: “The consequences of giving in to a narrative of the moment are destructive, far reaching, and permanent. Not just for Florida State, but college football as a whole.”
Said ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, who should get used to the abuse: “It's unfathomable that Florida State, an undefeated Power Five conference champion, was left out of the College Football Playoff. Their exclusion calls into question the selection process and whether the Committee's own guidelines were followed, including the significant importance of being an undefeated Power Five conference champion. My heart breaks for the talented FSU student-athletes and coaches and their passionate and loyal fans. Florida State deserved better. College football deserved better.”
It would have been a hoot watching Norvell against another emerging national coach, Kalen DeBoer, who’s 24-2 in his first two Washington seasons after arriving via distant tailwinds. Did they use a Sherpa guide to locate him? He grew up in Millbank, S.D., near where he finished 67-3 in the small sphere of NAIA ball in Sioux Falls. When Michael Penix wanted to transfer at Indiana, DeBoer was familiar, working with him there as a coordinator. The man has bopped — from Carbondale, Ill.; to Ypsilanti, Mich.; to Fresno, Calif.; to Bloomington, Ind. — and then, back to Fresno before the Huskies hired him to replace Jimmy Lake, who was waived after shoving a player on a sideline. DeBoer turned loose his playmakers against Oregon and blew out oddsmakers. Now, Penix will contend for the Heisman Trophy.
“I want to give these guys a chance to go win a football game,” DeBoer said. “Not play scared. Not play to just try to be close. Play to win. … We got a chance to do something really special here. And, man, I want it for the people around me more than I want it for myself.”
Same applies to Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, who has rewarded Saban for saving him from alcohol issues with a coordinator’s job years ago. He turned loose his quarterback, Quinn Ewers, who will stick around next season and force the Manning kid in the QB room — Arch, still not playing — to maybe use a transfer portal. For now, the Longhorns are atop the Big 12 before departing for the SEC. “I told them it would be Year Three. In the end, you’ll get the results you were looking for,” Sarkisian said of his initial run. “The culture is so strong. We’ll play anybody in the country in this tournament.”
He gets Washington. The committee liked the program’s totality in early December. Texas is worthy. “I think that's the intent of the College Football Playoff, putting the four best teams in that playoff,” Sarkisian said. “Do we think we're one of those? For sure, we do. This isn't a vote. We don't want to get to the election booth and vote. We wanted to start playing for each other in this program. Society is about texting, but we like to have direct conversations with each other. It’s created a bond that we can see.”
So we have Saban and the “real world” and the new worlds of DeBoer and Sarkisian. Who else? Oh, Harbaugh was back from another suspension for Michigan’s 26-0 drubbing of Iowa in the Big Ten championship game. Would he bash Tony Petitti, the conference commissioner who suspended the coach and was booed by no-conscience Wolverines fans during the trophy presentation? Turns out Petitti wasn’t anywhere near Harbaugh, perhaps by design, which left Fox’s Joel Klatt to announce another development. “To present tonight's championship trophy, Coach Harbaugh wanted it to go to Zak Zinter. So the commissioner of the Big Ten, Tony Petitti, the trophy, to 65, Zak Zinter,” said Klatt, referring to the injured offensive lineman. Turns out Harbaugh shook hands later with Petitti, who should be trying to lock Michigan out of the postseason.
“Congratulations to you, coach. Welcome back,” said defensive back Mike Sainristil, who won MVP honors.
“I never left!” Harbaugh said.
The Zinter call was a nice salute for a man who doesn’t need more polarizing moments. “It's not about me, I've had plenty of success,” Harbaugh said. “But you know that your players can feel what it's like to be a champion, their families can know what it's like to be a champion, for my wife and my kids to have their dad be a champion, for my parents to have their son be a champion, that's the great thrill. It's a beautiful, wonderful thing.”
Soon enough, Harbaugh will be taking shots at Saban — something about losing a game, which Michigan and Washington haven’t done — in a wild sideshow of coaches. Next year, remember, the playoff allows a dozen teams in a thankfully expanded tournament. Loathe the chaos while you have it.
“Thanks to God,” Harbaugh said Sunday when his team was seeded No. 1. “He’s had his hand on this team all year, a spiritual journey for us. Thanks to God and our savior Jesus Christ for keeping us galvanized.”
What will he say next?
For now, the system needed one more favor for Alabama. You’ve heard the song, “Deacon Blues.” Once more, in 2023, the committee members in their boxer shorts cranked it in a Dallas-Fort Worth hotel ballroom. “They got a name for the winners in the world. I want a name when I lose,” goes the Steely Dan ditty. “They call Alabama the Crimson Tide …”
Mike Norvell can finish.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.