This year, college football experienced one of its craziest years yet. This is mainly due to the world of college sports being almost three years into the NIL, a new system where college players get paid. NIL has led to top college football players to spread out amongst teams rather than a handful of schools having all the best players in the country. After a rollercoaster of a year, the college football playoffs have recently started. These playoffs are unique because it is a four team single elimination tournament where the participants are decided by a committee. The committee decides who participates by record, strength of schedule, and consideration of player injuries. Naturally, this has led to extreme controversy as it is extremely difficult to pick only four teams with these rules. 

This year, there were six teams with strong cases to be participants. Michigan, Washington, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, and Florida State all had fantastic seasons with none of them having more than one loss. While Michigan and Washington were locked due to their undefeated, dominant seasons, the other two spots were up for grabs. Many argued Florida State was the next most deserving because they were also undefeated, but their star quarterback was injured and unable to play. In addition, many argued for Texas because they had many dominant victories over great teams such as Alabama. Alabama’s main case was that they beat Georgia in the last week of the season to ruin their two straight years of being undefeated. Lastly, Georgia had been dominant and unbeatable up until their last game of the season against Alabama which made them contenders. Ultimately, the committee chose Alabama and Texas to be the final two teams in the playoffs. This led to incredible outrage all over sports as many felt that although the player in the most important position on their team was hurt, Florida State’s unbeaten record was more than enough to place them in the playoffs. Many players of Florida State’s team and other well-known athletes such as Robert Griffin III argued that it was a travesty that they weren’t included.

After the announcement of the playoffs, Georgia and Florida State were set to play one last game outside the playoffs against each other to cap off the 2024 season because they were both viewed as the next two best teams in the country. Florida State’s case to be placed in the playoffs was dismantled as Georgia demolished them with a final score of 63-3. Granted, Florida state had the majority of their key players not playing due to them opting out or entering the transfer portal. However, Georgia was arguably snubbed from the playoffs as well and rather than quitting like Florida State, their players chose to play and end the season on a high note. 

Meanwhile, in the actual college football playoffs, Florida State’s argument was further dismantled as two razor close games occurred between the four teams in the playoffs. Michigan and Washington both edged out close games respectively against Alabama and Texas. On January 8th, Michigan will play Washington in the College Football Championship where one team will maintain their unbeaten streak. Therefore, it is vividly clear the college football committee made the correct decision: Florida State proved they did not deserve to be in the playoffs, while Texas and Alabama did.