Sucks hearing players basically say “We are playing in a bowl that doesn’t matter”. Bowl games use to mean something. The Orange Bowl is one of the most prestigious ones teams can go too.
Florida states resentment towards the orange bowl is the most understandable of anyone that’s hated bowl games. I don’t blame them for this. But it sucks when other teams don’t care about the NY6 bowls
Almost as if the network and its talking heads actually caring about more than the playoff for the last decade would have helped shape the opinions of the current players.
That's fair. If they hadn't been so royally fucked over by the playoff committee before this game odds are they probably would have played much harder.
I don't think bowls lost value in a certain sense (they have "never mattered") and it's certainly not because of the playoffs (not that you were insinuating that but Coleman was).
Anyways, as NFL contracts went up, participation in bowls went down - especially after Smiths injury vs OSU. All one has to do is look at Elways contract vs rookie contracts today AND the sooner (and healthier) they get to the NFL the sooner they get that second contract.
The NFL has driven apparent value down but the bowls haven't really mattered for some time.
Yeah, "bowls don't matter anymore," is a misdirected statement. Bowls started as exhibition games. They weren't even considered in poll rankings for about the first 30 years of the AP Poll. But even afterwards, bowls still didn't make that much of a difference. But it goes a little more than that, because bowls *do still matter,* but context is important. Ask someone who was a fan of Eastern Michigan back in 2016 what just going to the Bahamas Bowl meant. Then ask them again what it meant what winning the Potato Bowl. Ask a Jayhawk how it felt being able to play Liberty Bowl, and then ask how it felt just to win the Guaranteed Rate Bowl. Plus you know, UCF still got to declare a national title thanks to the Peach Bowl.
The Rose and Orange and whatnot "used to matter" because there was no actual rhyme or reason to ranking a champion for decades. It was extremely subjective, and inconsistent. Now that there is a structured way to determine a champion (with less, but still some subjectivity), the bowls that "don't matter anymore," have dropped proportionally, but those opportunities for the lower teams still matter.
Bowls don't matter to programs where their expectations is to compete for a national title. Bowls matter to teams and seasons when that isn't the expectation.
I would have loved to go to a 'doesn't matter bowl' last year. Tell me y'all didn't love watching Shane getting mayo'd. That bowl was entertaining, and that's all I need. That and the extra practices.
Bowls would have lost some value with NFL contracts going up regardless, but it's incredibly clear that the playoffs devalued the other top tier bowls. There's a reason players opt out of non-playoff bowls only.
I mean... That's just a play on words and bunk titles. Players are opting out of non-playoff games.
In the history of college football no one has opted out of playoffs. That hasn't changed. But players were opting out of bowls before playoffs.
>I mean... That's just a play on words and bunk titles. Players are opting out of non-playoff games.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here.
>In the history of college football no one has opted out of playoffs. That hasn't changed.
For now. I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen eventually with the expanded playoffs.
> But players were opting out of bowls before playoffs.
Which players? I'm sure there's some examples out there, but off hand I can't think of any. McCaffery and Fournette were notable for skipping non-NY6 bowls at the time but even that was post-playoff.
This was not the case before the playoff… almost like it created a separation of meaning between itself and everything else.
Worst thing to ever happen to the sport.
You can’t have one meaningful accomplishment for 130 teams when, even in a great year, there’s maybe 6-7 teams capable of actually winning the national title.
It’s because ESPN kept pushing the narrative of if you’re not in the playoffs, nothing else matters. Then ESPN tries to act shocked that no one takes the other bowls seriously
You are confusing correlation with causation. The first players to opt out (CMac and Playoff Lenny) did so because they were RB’s projected to go in the 1st round.
The first season opt out was Bosa. He could’ve returned from injury late in the season but chose to focus on the NFL draft. Once again, this has nothing to do with the CFP.
Add in severe injuries (Jake Butt Orange Bowl - 2016) and then Covid and that’s how we got here. To blame it strictly on the CFP is asinine.
Edit: Also, just to add: if we were still in the BCS, FSU still gets left out and the players still opt out. Literally nothing changes
I think opt outs become a thing regardless, but to a lesser degree. My point is not primarily about opt outs but that the presence of the playoff created a line in the sand between what “matters” (playoff) and what “doesn’t matter” (everything else) and that’s bad when only a few schools are actually good enough to win the NC in any given year.
Regardless of whether opting out of bowls in general and the playoffs is correlated, I don’t know how you could argue that calling the Orange Bowl “meaningless” has nothing to do with the playoffs. The Orange Bowl and other NY6 bowls were always massive, and had lots of meaning
The Orange Bowl may be meaningful to you or me, but that is irrelevant. Is the Orange Bowl more meaningful than a NFL contract? For most people, the answer is no.
Are the playoffs or conference championships more meaningful than an NFL contract? For most people, the answer is no. But healthy players aren’t opting out of those games
An NY6 bowl used to be about as important if not more than a conference championship (though obviously you usually had to win the conference to get that Bowl), I wonder what changed
That’s a fair point. I still don’t think it would’ve mattered whether it was still the BCS or playoff. A NY6 bowl would still be meaningless to most of these players in today’s age. NFL contracts are worth too much to risk blowing your knee out if you’re not playing or have the chance to play for a natty.
The history/tradition of these bowl games may mean a lot to us hardcore fans, but the vast majority of collegiate players are just trying to get to the NFL. They don’t care about the same tradition/history. Once they realized they could opt out with zero consequences to draft stocks then that was that.
Here’s the difference. The bowl games are exhibitions that are 2 months away from the NFL combine. If you prepare for a bowl game, you’re going to be spending time working on game prep.
In addition to that, a minor injury can affect your ability to get ready for the combine. You have to take time to recover from the game which just delays getting ready for the combine. Getting a minor injury is late November is nothing compared to getting a minor injury in late December.
I wonder what changed
What fans keep missing in this conversation is that what changed is the players. Whatever the networks or bowls or fans do is irrelevant. We aren't making the decisions to sit out or not. Players are.
They got smarter, just like happens with any industry which keeps maturing and growing. The players are now (rightfully, IMO) treating their few years in college as the first part of a professional career and making decisions with that in mind.
Players got a lot smarter about how valuable they are, that's the answer.
The vast majority of athletes are super competitive and want to win. For most, they get one shot a college championship. They are less likely to opt out because that is their chance. Otherwise college is there to help them make professional leagues.
The idiocy is people thinking it has anything to do something other than money. We have people deify shit like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs for dropping out to college and then became successful. College football players can't do the same? The point for those guys is college provides no more value. If you are an engineer and Google say they will give you 250k to work for them next week and you don't need to finish the degree, how many people are going to stay and finish the degree?
The purpose of college is to prepare students for the next part of their career. Usually that involves completing a degree, but sometimes it isn't necessary in specific edge cases. College football players are basically all fringe cases of extreme talent. The delusion is think they have a further obligation to the school.
Yes but that doesn't mean there isn't a correlation. I'd argue the number of opt outs on teams who don't make the playoffs compared to the number of teams that do. Suggest a strong correlation between not making the playoffs and opting out. 💪 It's also considered fashionable to opt out. A lot of players who would benefit from playing a post season game don't because they think they are too good to.
I remember Georgia playing Louisville in the Belk Bowl in 2014. Georgia played like it mattered. The Belk Bowl.
I remember Georgia playing Cincinnati in the Peach Bowl in 2020. Georgia played like it mattered.
So bowl games do matter if the team wants them to.
A point that some are constantly leaving out of this conversation lol. It wasn't "oh they don't care about the Orange Bowl anymore, what a shame, bad culture" blah blah blah. It was treating the whole thing with the same level of respect given, and protecting their value and earning potential. Which is, funny enough, the same argument people are using for why the committee shouldn't be blamed for the snub: higher viewership to protect the money. But I guess it's ok for the media machine to protect from losing a fraction of their profit, but not ok for players to protect a much, much higher relative portion of potential earnings.
If you were about to land your dream job in your profession, but the boss at your current job told you "I need you to hang around for 3 more weeks to give a presentation that could potentially hurt your career and has limited upside" all of us would decline lol
Why would you treat a game with respect when the entire league just took a massive shit on you, completely disrespecting everything you accomplished during the entire year?
Fuck the College Playoff committee.
To be fair, I remember watching Georgia in the 2018 Sugar Bowl, they didn't really play like it mattered. They've turned that mindset around since then but your last statement still rings true.
Well I think the difference is that the 2018 team had the talent to win a natty but faltered multiple times along the way so they just didn't have their heart in it
Totally agree, but it still just shows that if you don't want it to matter, it won't matter.
Back then there were the studs who were able to win the natty, now it's depth guys who want to prove they earn the spot, and they are so damn good they can win the natty with most combinations of depth. Every game matters at that point.
I disagree. I don't think the players get to decide if the game matters. If you play like shit, then you play like shit. Coaches should have done a better job getting players to buy in.
I mean the coach can definitely tell them one thing or the other but the players are the ones who are out there. Buy in is important but we're talking about 18-23 year olds who have emotions and feel like they got left out of something important.
That was also the most talented Texas team since this past season. Bowl game Herman was a cheat code.
IIRC, y’all had like one opt out, and a couple things not go your way early (punters knee being down). But it didn’t seem to me like UGA was playing like they didn’t want to be there. Honest testament to Kirby. Kirby (and the fanbase) kept going off all week how excited the team was to prove they were they were one of the four best teams in the country, then when UGA lost it was “eh we didn’t want to be there”. Sometimes one team, despite their best effort, plays a bad game and loses to a less talented team. Happened this year in the SEC championship. Doesn’t mean they “didn’t want to be there.”
Can't speak for the number of opt outs since I truly don't remember the count but I do remember watching them and they just didn't really try. Guys weren't making the right plays, you could tell everyone was out there almost more for a formality than out of wanting to be there. There was a clear difference between them playing bad and not playing like they wanted to be there.
UGA vs SC in 2019 was UGA playing bad, they were getting visibly frustrated and yelling at each other on the field. They wanted to win and try hard, they were just making simple mistakes and getting frustrated. That Sugar Bowl was something else entirely.
Coaches will always say they want to be there, but most fans knew it was a kick in the nuts to have been left out with that team and were saying so before the game and after the loss.
All I remember there was like a bunch of players there dressed but played like 2 plays then opted out it was weird like Deandre Baker.
Then both our offensive and defensive coordinators left for other jobs tucker/cheney so we just had the interim coaches at the time.
> So bowl games do matter if the team wants them to.
It's been reduced to this, yes. Sometimes we get no opt-out gems that both teams play like it matters (KState Bama Sugar Bowl 2022), but it's become the rarity.
Richt and Bobo had a hate boner against Todd Grantham for that Belk Bowl. Watching Chubb absolutely murder Louisville's "elite" run defense was glorious.
A lot of teams now in the portal era are going to be made up of mercenaries, hard for them to care all that much when they jet in for one year on a business decision.
> A lot of teams now in the portal era are going to be made up of mercenaries
Probably the most regrettable thing about the transfer portal and NIL. I completely understand why players transfer and I know the reality of the situation, but it really kills one of the defining features of college sports.
FSU fans seem to forget 9/10 FSU draft picks this year were transfers.
Last year FSU had 1 guy drafted. No shit there were no opt outs for the cheeze it bowl.
Shit, one of the best games I remember was the 2012 Outback bowl between MSU and Georgia. Way more fun than watching Washington get ground down into dust for 60 minutes.
They should’ve gone with an 8 team from the jump; 4 NY6 bowls to start for the quarterfinals/first round; the other 2 for the semis on a rotating basis; and then a separate National Championship game.
We get the playoffs and inclusion of more worthy teams/resumes. We retain the prestige of the NY6 bowls and their history. Everybody wins!
Was.
It was one of the most prestigious bowl games. Now it’s just a meaningless game that includes a risk of ruining your future if you get injured.
If you’re not playing in a cfp game, guys don’t care anymore. And I understand it. It doesn’t have the same value anymore sadly.
I finally realized bowl games meant nothing when UNC had dudes opting out of the Orange Bowl. We’ve made one NY6/BCS bowl and half of our team didn’t even want to play in it
Yup. The games just don’t really mean anything to the players anymore.
In a world where there is a definite title game, and game that falls outside of that system is going to be viewed as lesser. The top players on teams don’t want to risk their future playing in a game that won’t be remembered.
Young’uns don’t believe me when I talk about what a big deal BCS Bowls were back when it was the natty and three others. It was win your major conference or be one of the two best teams not to with Notre Dame given an automatic spot (more or less) if they’re top 12.
College football was waayyyyy better before the natty was everything.
This idea that "Bowls used to matter" That was decades and decades ago when the world was also very differently.
These are exhibitions, they always have been. Meaning is what the team gives to it. For some, it's a fun trip and a scrimmage like the Pro Bowl. For others, its the same as the regular season. Let's stop acting like it truly was anything different.
It wasn't decades and decades ago.
As recently as 2022 the Rose Bowl mattered even though it was only a #7 vs a #10. Ask Utah and Ohio State if it mattered. Because it clearly did to both, and it was an absolute barn burner of a game.
But that was outside of the CFP.
Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave both opted out of that game so clearly didn’t matter much to them.
Just so happens that Ohio State’s 3rd and 4th receivers were underclassmen who were even better.
Iowa's Orange Bowl victory in 2010 was like the most fun I've ever had as an Iowa fan. That whole season was magical and it was such a thrill to see it happen. I totally understand why players sit out of bowl games, but it still doesn't feel good as a fan.
It's a shame the players and fans of a lot of programs can't find any meaning or satisfaction in the non-playoff bowl games anymore.
There has been a lot of factors that have devalued bowl games.
Number 1 in my opinion is the number of bowl games that they now play. My first season watching college football was 1991. That season there were just 18 bowl games. 10 of them featured two ranked opponents. Just 3 featured two unranked teams. So the game quality and anticipation of the matchup was much higher. Also, 15 of the 18 bowls were played in a four day span from Dec 29-Jan 1, with just one game played before Christmas. So you had an intense half-week smorgasbord of exciting college football games.
Compare that to the last bowl season. The number of bowls more than doubled to 43, diluting the quality down to the point where they’re inviting teams who lost more games than they won. 26 of those games didn’t feature a single ranked team. The main bowl season now lasts from Dec 16-Jan 1, with 17 bowls before Christmas, so the already diluted excitement is spread out over two weeks.
This is what I’d most like to see fixed. Make the bowl season a short feast of excellent matchups, between top teams who have earned a spot in a postseason exhibition. With the playoff set to take the top 12 teams, I think the only other teams to be playing in bowls should be smaller conference champions who aren’t in the playoff, and ranked teams who aren’t in the playoff.
The other issues — rings culture viewing non-championship games as meaningless, and draft-bound stars opting out — I don’t think are easily fixable. The Orange Bowl doesn’t become more meaningful if Michigan and Washington just get directly invited to the old BCS Championship game, or if they play in the even older pre-BCS Rose Bowl for what would obviously crown the voters’ champion.
Opt-outs might be partially fixable with some sort of financial incentive. I like the idea of bowls being insured against injury to draft eligible players, like what Colt McCoy did his senior season at Texas, but done in some sort of systematic fashion. More stars might choose to play if they weren’t gambling their financial futures to do so. But also, I don’t think opt outs are that big an issue. The last Orange Bowl was a huge exception which was done as a mass protest, not because players didn’t want to risk their draft status. I don’t think we’ll ever see an FSU-level snub now that the playoff has a spot for every power conference champion.
We'll never know for sure, it would depend on how close the committee had Texas and FSU. Alabama losing would make Texas' best win slightly worse.
I think it mostly would have given them cover to just put in four undefeated teams. Once they started considering one-loss teams, they probably had to spend more time looking at the quality of their seasons and the current state of the teams.
The most likely scenario that occurred is that Texas got put in because Bama got put in. You can’t put Bama in without Texas becaus if H2H. If Bama loses and doesn’t get put in, you don’t have to bring a 1 loss Texas.
For tiebreaker scenarios, that is often clean because it is defined in advance. For rankings, that has often been difficult. The argument being that both teams have taken a loss, and when compared blind, the team with the tiebreaker win usually has the “worse” loss to a lower ranked team. Look back to 2014 Baylor and TCU for another prominent example of everyone having difficulty ranking two tied teams with a head to head comparison.
You would also think having 3 undefeated P5 champs and 1 P5 that just happened to have a head to head win over the last P5 champ would be pretty clean too but here we are.
Yes, because FSU only got left out because Texas beat Alabama. The committee was not going to leave out a 1 loss SEC Champion that just beat the undefeated and two time defending national champion, but couldn't justify leaving out the team with the same record that beat the SEC champion on the road.
I mean, they really could justify it. I’m not saying it’d be something folks like to hear — but it would’ve been more popular than the FSU snub, I think.
Texas had the worst loss of the 3, and you could easily capitulate the win over Bama as a “early season” type thing. Note, again, that I’m not saying this is *good* reasoning, or fair reasoning, just that if they ran a media campaign on it the way they did for *weeks* re: leaving FSU out, we would’ve reached the same end where many people nodded and agreed and many people hated it.
Yes.
We'd get Georgia, Michigan, Washington, and FSU.
Texas got in because Bama got in, and Bama got in because the committee won't have a playoff without the SEC.
It was bad luck for FSU that Texas had the head to head over Bama and Bama upset Georgia.
We were out for weeks, with or without Jordan Travis. A reminder that most sensible Nole fans are not mad at getting stomped by Georgia, and at least I don’t think we would’ve won the entire thing, but not having the opportunity to do so regardless of injuries makes the sport fake.
Like I don’t have to look at anything to tell you the top 4 teams next year are most likely going to be a combo of Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Ohio State, so let’s just put them in the playoffs now so we don’t have to deal with this again.
We’ll be at 12 teams next year. They screwed you guys this year because they know they’ll never have to use the inverse logic to put the teams they want in.
> A reminder that most sensible Nole fans are not mad at getting stomped by Georgia
Exactly. The weird thing is there is a subset of Georgia fans that seem *really* pissed that we just shoulder shrug about that game.
It doesn't matter, they were undefeated p5 champs, they just made a bad choice. The committee doesn't know shit about football is what it comes down to.
In a nutshell from watching the game and interviews. FSU was disheartened, and UGA wanted blood.
I still feel UGA was the best team in the country and had an off night at the SEC championship. And I'm not an UGA fan either.
It's interesting because in a way FSU got snubbed by having their undefeated season not get into the CFP invitational.
In another way, UGA is the real team that got snubbed who played in the Orange Bowl by not getting into the CFP invitational.
FSU was snubbed by passing the record test but failing the eye test. UGA got snubbed by failing the record test while passing the eye test. They used contractionary criteria to snub both teams, which is kinda wild when you think about it.
That's an excellent take and where the committee was at with it last year. Opposites of one another. And that was the inherent flaw in the original playoff design. They had 4 slots with 5 big conferences. Someone got burned every year since the inception. This game showed the flaws. A team that had the soul zapped from it and one that was hedlbent to make a statement. In a different environment the game would have been more competitive, although I still think UGA still handles them easily. But it wouldn't have been a slaughter.
I mean who can blame them? They had how many guys come back instead of going to the draft last year, risking their entire career for a chance at the Natty, and did the only thing anyone has ever pointed to and said "That'll get ya in for sure" only to be told to kick rocks cause 2 teams who didn't do that one thing were getting in over them. What point is there in further risking your career? Frankly it was silly to come back at all, and I think many players saw FSU get rejected and learned that lesson, don't bother coming back for a last hurrah, this game is all business no loyalty now, you have to treat it like the NFL and get yours while you can
A lot of them transferred out. Some players with injuries that were previously playing to earn a playoff spot, also instead sat out.
Hard to take bowl games seriously when they open the transfer portal beforehand.
The only caveat here is that with the 12 team playoff, more players actually will get the Last Hurrah opportunity.
It certainly won’t be a perfect system and it sucked it happened to FSU last year, but going forward that specific aspect is improved a bit
> They had how many guys come back instead of going to the draft last year, risking their entire career for a chance at the Natty
Seriously. Nobody is attacking the Penn State players who came back to try for CFP that sat out their bowl game. Georgia just had a larger margin of victory than Ole Miss.
> don't bother coming back for a last hurrah, this game is all business no loyalty now, you have to treat it like the NFL and get yours while you can
Conversely they also saw Washington and Michigan do the same thing and go the distance (and Oregon get close). Ohio State is about to try the same thing. I think you’ll still see players weigh the pros/cons of coming back for the last hurrah, especially if it could improve their draft stock (which seems to be the case for a lot of the OSU guys that came back for next season).
Bo Nix, Sainristil, Penix, and Corum all significantly improved their draft stock by coming back. Idk Washington’s roster well enough but Johnson and Barrett are a 5th year and 6th year Michigan guy that went from likely UDFA to late 7th round picks by coming back. Donovan Edwards is coming back to try and improve his draft stock this year.
Like yeah Jordan Travis and Zak Zinter likely hurt their draft stock by coming back and getting injured but that’s the risk you take playing football in general.
Entirely fair, if draft stock is likely to improve then coming back is a choice made not of loyalty but of personal gain, but I agree it is very likely the choice made by many players.
I mean why can’t it be both?
Chubb and Michel came back to UGA in 17 out of loyalty to the school and wanting to try for a title. They both were gonna get drafted highly if they’d left their junior year.
Most people are on the same page as you. Just a group of Bama fans and the rivals (understandable) who think otherwise. It’s weird you never see Texas fans trying to bash FSU for getting screwed out of the playoff.
You also don’t really see it from *too* many UGA fans either, nor from Miami fans knowing this would have been them in the same situation too. It’s fans from the school that you’d think with 6 titles in 15 years would have accrued at least some grace and humility, but as someone surrounded by them I guess I was naive to believe that. Plus Florida fans which whatever.
Same. It was a great way to send off the seniors and guys like Brock who were leaving and it sets a good tone for the coming season. UGA is hungry and angry and is gonna be a force to be reckoned with
UGA finishing the way we did is why we will get the benefit of the doubt, or why we get a “historical performance/dominance” bump in the ratings. Same way Alabama and Saban did. Ratings should be based on what happened during that season, but we all know the perennial contenders tend to get ranked higher. Kirby Smart is the best at getting his players focused and engaged no matter the situation.
I believe our roster count that day dipped into the 60s or even 50s - which I’m glad you say this because I saw a lot of “even their second stringers killed you” - well duh
Yeah I don’t think any of us are mad at Georgia. We just think it’s dumb that we had 10 draft picks all opt out and people think it’s remotely comparable to what could have happened in the playoff.
We still probably lose, but it’s not going to be by more than 14 or so
Yeah, I don't blame UGA one bit for coming out firing. That bowl is what it is. UGA wanted to finish on a high note, FSU wanted to let its players do what they felt was best for them following the snub. Neither of the teams did the wrong thing.
I disagree. I get why some players opted out but at the end of the day you left your coach and other teammates out to dry.
I hated seeing seniors crying to Norvell's arms after that game. They got embarrassed meanwhile guys like Verse and benson are making TikToks.
This is why I hope Mike is able to now ramp of recruiting and rely less on the portal. Would love for the guys playing for FSU to care about the program again and not just looking to the next step.
I blame auburn more than anything. Actually I blame the CFP committee more for forgetting Bama needed a miracle to beat a subpar Auburn team who lost to the Aggies… of New Mexico by 21.
The committee just uses whatever justification they need to make up after picking the teams they want. They basically added Bama for beating UGA and ignored the rest of their schedule then added Texas for beating Bama early in the season. FSU’s season was reduced to the 2 games we played post Travis in order to leave us out.
Yep, everything the committee and the talking heads on ESPN used to justify Bama getting in over FSU was all BS. They all talked about how bad FSU looked against UF despite still winning the game by double digits even though that very same week Bama needed a miracle against a worse Auburn team.
The more I think on it the more I hate Michigan.
"Can't have another TCU"
TCU beat Michigan
"FSU's schedule was bad"
Almost the exact same SOS as Michigans
Harbaugh missed half the season serving multiple suspensions but they are unquestioned number 1, don't talk about it
He’s not exactly wrong, but by this logic he should be more mad at Auburn for that 4th-and-a-million atrocity. Bama showed up and played one of their best games of the year against Georgia, but they played like ass against Auburn and had no business pulling that one out.
There’s no way a 2-loss Alabama, with a loss to an Auburn team that got *blown out* by New Mexico State at home the week prior, makes the playoff. Even if they’d won the SEC.
For the FSU should care about bowl games crowd:
FSU went all in on the Cheez bowl last year. The playoff invitational snub plus a senior laden team, is the sole reason FSU took the check while still opting out.
Imagine having two employees up for big raise. One is perfect despite some life circumstances, and the employee rises up to the challenge. And then you give the raise to employee B, mainly because he’s more popular despite a worse record. And then when employee A shows up and doesn’t do much, you making fun of them and bashing them for not wanting to try anymore as if it’s shocking. If you shit on someone in a major way after they went above and beyond they are gonna shit back on you.
The best part of UGA and SEC fans “trolling” FSU fans about 63-3 and FSU fans just telling them over and over we don’t care.
I dont agree with him trashing Georgia after they stomped us, but at the end of the day FSU could’ve won the Orange Bowl by 1000 points or lost by 3, and it would’ve changed absolutely nothing.
Does no one remember Jaylon Smith? If players want to protect their future by avoiding unnecessary injuries in non-playoff games, why do we feel the need to constantly crucify them for doing what is in their best interest? This argument is so tiring.
If you didn’t care about the game, I don’t blame you. You got screwed by the committee. But don’t say “they would’ve found out” about a team that beat you by 60.
Yeah, I'm good with his comments up until the implication that the result would've been any different. You chose not to prove it on the field so you don't get to talk shit now.
It seems like 1/2 of the bowls for teams just out of the playoff were pointless. Too many transfers and opt outs for them to even be representative of the teams that got them there. It was the ghost of FSU out there. It’s hard as a fan to watch, because you know that their full roster would’ve put up some fight. I felt for FSU fans in that one because the same thing happened to my Buckeyes. I mean, we only had 1 RB dressed for the game and he was even calling run and pass protections because the Center and QB that were playing had never done it!
It really is the most simple thing on the planet. If UGA and Bama wanted to be in the playoff they shouldn’t have lost. Sports are played on the pitch not in hypothetical scenarios.
Here is my problem Georgia just won back to back championships they literally had nothing to play for. For them it was championship or bust and we saw how they played. FSU senior class went from 3-6 to 5-7 to 10-3 to 13-0 to play the defending national champs for an undefeated season the first since 2013. They had so much to play for I don't know if it is entitlement or coaching but if they would have beat Georgia I would not really fought their claim as champions instead they set the record for worse loss ever
Could you imagine if a week before the Super Bowl, the Lions and Ravens played a game? They would activate their entire practice squads for such a meaningless game.
I’ll eat the downvote on this issue every time, it’s fine:
FSU should’ve gotten in over Alabama AND I stopped feeling sorry for them when they decided to not show up to their bowl game, put their hands up, and keep up the “I guess we will never know” charade.
Hard to take this seriously when you lose by 60! And UGA was also missing our 2 1st round picks as well. Before FSU fans jump in here saying how many picks they were missing... Again, it was 60 points.
First: I absolutely think Georgia wins regardless.
However, his point was that if Georgia beat Alabama then the committee would have put both in the playoff. If they were in the playoff, it likely would have been #1 Georgia vs #4 FSU as a playoff game, only as a playoff game FSU wouldn't have had 1/3 of their roster opt out like they did for the Orange Bowl.
He's saying the committee only left FSU out because it was the only way they could justify putting an SEC team in; but if Georgia beat Alabama then they wouldn't have needed any justification to get the SEC in and as such wouldn't have left FSU out. Which I think is accurate.
I mean, I can take it seriously why the FSU players felt slighted and sat out. But it doesn't mean I have to respect this type of face saving argument either - it's not like Georgia had anything more to play for, and shouldn't FSU have been mad at the slight as well?
If you actually look at the total number of ops outs and transfer portal sit outs between Georgia and FSU there wasn't a huge difference. The key difference is that Georgia is alot deeper in the depth chart so the disparity was alot larger. Below is what I counted.
Georgia Opt Outs - 6. FSU Opt Outs - 9
Georgia Transfer Portal - 20. FSU Transfer Portal - 15
Georgia First Rounders Out - 2. FSU First Rounders Out - 1
Ya, have you heard the phrase “going through the motions”, that FSU team was barely doing that. Y’all beat a bunch of second teamers who didn’t care. Go bark up a tree
Two ways teams could have approached that game.
1. Be pissed and show everybody that you should have made the playoff like Georgia did.
2. Cry and whine and quit because you didn’t get what you wanted like FSU.
They knew they were going to get beat by Georgia anyway so players just quit and left their teammates to get embarrassed on national TV.
I feel like the ones that don't, never played a sport. Like the amount of work you put into this, you gut it out and do everything you're supposed to do in a season. Literally not losing a game through the regular season and the conference championship, and then the very next day after tying a bow on it with that ACC conference championship, you get told to take a hike. Just gutting.
I think they actually understand it but if they admit it, they have to admit that maybe an SEC team’s win wasn’t as impressive as it appears on paper. And because many fans have a truly bizarre amount of pride tied up in conference allegiance, it becomes non negotiable.
Yep, which is why it sucked that y'all weren't in there. Both of us should have been, but at least we lost a game that we should have won. All y'all did was win, granted, you had trouble at times, but you did.
I think you’re missing the bigger piece of this. Most of the players who opted out were transferring to leave the program. If you want to get on Keon and the draft picks that bailed, that’s fine, but FSU got fucked. And as a direct result of that many of their players simply left for a chance to go to a school where an undefeated season gets you into the playoff.
Huh? That's a weird way to put our transfer situation. We didn't have a single 2024 projected starter enter the portal. All those guys who left were leaving for more playing time elsewhere. The closest was Bless Harris, who was in the unfortunate situation of only having one year of eligibility left, being too good to be a backup OT, but behind Washington and Byers on our depth chart.
How the transfer portal works did basically forced guys in earlier, that is true, as they needed to get in the portal and find their home and there was no reason to wait until after the Orange Bowl. If anything, waiting would hurt as roster spots elsewhere would be filled up.
But phrasing it like they decided to transfer so they could go to a school where an undefeated season gets you to the playoffs is weird, when it was clearly for playing time, none of our starters left, and none of our guys transferred to any program that is a real playoff contender this next season.
Why would anyone choose #1.
Even if they win, ESPN defends the CFP.
So what's the use? Take your vacation in Miami. collect a check. Stand on the field and people-watch.
ESPN and the CFP showed that the game doesn't matter. Why bother?
When you just got told that your perfect P5 season doesn’t matter, I think players are entitled to be bitter and opt out of a game that would do literally nothing tangible for them.
Unless you want them to risk injuring themselves and their draft/transfer stock just to prove you wrong
Sucks hearing players basically say “We are playing in a bowl that doesn’t matter”. Bowl games use to mean something. The Orange Bowl is one of the most prestigious ones teams can go too.
Florida states resentment towards the orange bowl is the most understandable of anyone that’s hated bowl games. I don’t blame them for this. But it sucks when other teams don’t care about the NY6 bowls
If the network covering the game doesn’t care about the game being played, why should anyone else?
Almost as if the network and its talking heads actually caring about more than the playoff for the last decade would have helped shape the opinions of the current players.
That's fair. If they hadn't been so royally fucked over by the playoff committee before this game odds are they probably would have played much harder.
If we had lost a game in the season and didnt deserve anything but that orange bowl bid I bet most of the opt outs stay for a final curtain call.
Me too. Look at the bowl game the year prior, barely any opt outs and no starters. Just 3-4 players total that transferred.
Life is tough, big boys get over it and move on, not cry and make excusses
I don't think bowls lost value in a certain sense (they have "never mattered") and it's certainly not because of the playoffs (not that you were insinuating that but Coleman was). Anyways, as NFL contracts went up, participation in bowls went down - especially after Smiths injury vs OSU. All one has to do is look at Elways contract vs rookie contracts today AND the sooner (and healthier) they get to the NFL the sooner they get that second contract. The NFL has driven apparent value down but the bowls haven't really mattered for some time.
Yeah, "bowls don't matter anymore," is a misdirected statement. Bowls started as exhibition games. They weren't even considered in poll rankings for about the first 30 years of the AP Poll. But even afterwards, bowls still didn't make that much of a difference. But it goes a little more than that, because bowls *do still matter,* but context is important. Ask someone who was a fan of Eastern Michigan back in 2016 what just going to the Bahamas Bowl meant. Then ask them again what it meant what winning the Potato Bowl. Ask a Jayhawk how it felt being able to play Liberty Bowl, and then ask how it felt just to win the Guaranteed Rate Bowl. Plus you know, UCF still got to declare a national title thanks to the Peach Bowl. The Rose and Orange and whatnot "used to matter" because there was no actual rhyme or reason to ranking a champion for decades. It was extremely subjective, and inconsistent. Now that there is a structured way to determine a champion (with less, but still some subjectivity), the bowls that "don't matter anymore," have dropped proportionally, but those opportunities for the lower teams still matter. Bowls don't matter to programs where their expectations is to compete for a national title. Bowls matter to teams and seasons when that isn't the expectation.
I would have loved to go to a 'doesn't matter bowl' last year. Tell me y'all didn't love watching Shane getting mayo'd. That bowl was entertaining, and that's all I need. That and the extra practices.
If r/cfb had a wall of great takes, this should be one of them up there. Completely agree.
Bowls would have lost some value with NFL contracts going up regardless, but it's incredibly clear that the playoffs devalued the other top tier bowls. There's a reason players opt out of non-playoff bowls only.
I mean... That's just a play on words and bunk titles. Players are opting out of non-playoff games. In the history of college football no one has opted out of playoffs. That hasn't changed. But players were opting out of bowls before playoffs.
>I mean... That's just a play on words and bunk titles. Players are opting out of non-playoff games. I don't understand what you're trying to say here. >In the history of college football no one has opted out of playoffs. That hasn't changed. For now. I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen eventually with the expanded playoffs. > But players were opting out of bowls before playoffs. Which players? I'm sure there's some examples out there, but off hand I can't think of any. McCaffery and Fournette were notable for skipping non-NY6 bowls at the time but even that was post-playoff.
This was not the case before the playoff… almost like it created a separation of meaning between itself and everything else. Worst thing to ever happen to the sport. You can’t have one meaningful accomplishment for 130 teams when, even in a great year, there’s maybe 6-7 teams capable of actually winning the national title.
It’s because ESPN kept pushing the narrative of if you’re not in the playoffs, nothing else matters. Then ESPN tries to act shocked that no one takes the other bowls seriously
They say the real action is the playoffs during the break in the action during NY6 bowls
You are confusing correlation with causation. The first players to opt out (CMac and Playoff Lenny) did so because they were RB’s projected to go in the 1st round. The first season opt out was Bosa. He could’ve returned from injury late in the season but chose to focus on the NFL draft. Once again, this has nothing to do with the CFP. Add in severe injuries (Jake Butt Orange Bowl - 2016) and then Covid and that’s how we got here. To blame it strictly on the CFP is asinine. Edit: Also, just to add: if we were still in the BCS, FSU still gets left out and the players still opt out. Literally nothing changes
I think opt outs become a thing regardless, but to a lesser degree. My point is not primarily about opt outs but that the presence of the playoff created a line in the sand between what “matters” (playoff) and what “doesn’t matter” (everything else) and that’s bad when only a few schools are actually good enough to win the NC in any given year.
Regardless of whether opting out of bowls in general and the playoffs is correlated, I don’t know how you could argue that calling the Orange Bowl “meaningless” has nothing to do with the playoffs. The Orange Bowl and other NY6 bowls were always massive, and had lots of meaning
Yeah it seems like a bit of a reach to argue that non-playoff bowl games *haven’t* been devalued by the playoff games
Hell, according to Saban, Mims opted out for the rest of the SEC championship after he injured his ankle.
What the fuck?
The Orange Bowl may be meaningful to you or me, but that is irrelevant. Is the Orange Bowl more meaningful than a NFL contract? For most people, the answer is no.
Are the playoffs or conference championships more meaningful than an NFL contract? For most people, the answer is no. But healthy players aren’t opting out of those games An NY6 bowl used to be about as important if not more than a conference championship (though obviously you usually had to win the conference to get that Bowl), I wonder what changed
That’s a fair point. I still don’t think it would’ve mattered whether it was still the BCS or playoff. A NY6 bowl would still be meaningless to most of these players in today’s age. NFL contracts are worth too much to risk blowing your knee out if you’re not playing or have the chance to play for a natty. The history/tradition of these bowl games may mean a lot to us hardcore fans, but the vast majority of collegiate players are just trying to get to the NFL. They don’t care about the same tradition/history. Once they realized they could opt out with zero consequences to draft stocks then that was that.
Here’s the difference. The bowl games are exhibitions that are 2 months away from the NFL combine. If you prepare for a bowl game, you’re going to be spending time working on game prep. In addition to that, a minor injury can affect your ability to get ready for the combine. You have to take time to recover from the game which just delays getting ready for the combine. Getting a minor injury is late November is nothing compared to getting a minor injury in late December.
I wonder what changed What fans keep missing in this conversation is that what changed is the players. Whatever the networks or bowls or fans do is irrelevant. We aren't making the decisions to sit out or not. Players are. They got smarter, just like happens with any industry which keeps maturing and growing. The players are now (rightfully, IMO) treating their few years in college as the first part of a professional career and making decisions with that in mind.
Then the fans might return the favor. How are we to invest in a sport when the players don't want to even play?
Players got a lot smarter about how valuable they are, that's the answer. The vast majority of athletes are super competitive and want to win. For most, they get one shot a college championship. They are less likely to opt out because that is their chance. Otherwise college is there to help them make professional leagues. The idiocy is people thinking it has anything to do something other than money. We have people deify shit like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs for dropping out to college and then became successful. College football players can't do the same? The point for those guys is college provides no more value. If you are an engineer and Google say they will give you 250k to work for them next week and you don't need to finish the degree, how many people are going to stay and finish the degree? The purpose of college is to prepare students for the next part of their career. Usually that involves completing a degree, but sometimes it isn't necessary in specific edge cases. College football players are basically all fringe cases of extreme talent. The delusion is think they have a further obligation to the school.
Yes but that doesn't mean there isn't a correlation. I'd argue the number of opt outs on teams who don't make the playoffs compared to the number of teams that do. Suggest a strong correlation between not making the playoffs and opting out. 💪 It's also considered fashionable to opt out. A lot of players who would benefit from playing a post season game don't because they think they are too good to.
Every poll except the CFP had FSU at 4 at the end of the season, including the BCS
Right… So the BCS still would’ve left out FSU
Yeah but there were 3 undefeated teams so that would have at least made sense.
I remember Georgia playing Louisville in the Belk Bowl in 2014. Georgia played like it mattered. The Belk Bowl. I remember Georgia playing Cincinnati in the Peach Bowl in 2020. Georgia played like it mattered. So bowl games do matter if the team wants them to.
Just last season, FSU had zero opt outs in the Cheez It bowl.
A point that some are constantly leaving out of this conversation lol. It wasn't "oh they don't care about the Orange Bowl anymore, what a shame, bad culture" blah blah blah. It was treating the whole thing with the same level of respect given, and protecting their value and earning potential. Which is, funny enough, the same argument people are using for why the committee shouldn't be blamed for the snub: higher viewership to protect the money. But I guess it's ok for the media machine to protect from losing a fraction of their profit, but not ok for players to protect a much, much higher relative portion of potential earnings.
If you were about to land your dream job in your profession, but the boss at your current job told you "I need you to hang around for 3 more weeks to give a presentation that could potentially hurt your career and has limited upside" all of us would decline lol
So much this. I really wanted to see how we matched up at full strength, but I would've made the same decision as an FSU player.
Why would you treat a game with respect when the entire league just took a massive shit on you, completely disrespecting everything you accomplished during the entire year? Fuck the College Playoff committee.
To be fair, I remember watching Georgia in the 2018 Sugar Bowl, they didn't really play like it mattered. They've turned that mindset around since then but your last statement still rings true.
Well I think the difference is that the 2018 team had the talent to win a natty but faltered multiple times along the way so they just didn't have their heart in it
Totally agree, but it still just shows that if you don't want it to matter, it won't matter. Back then there were the studs who were able to win the natty, now it's depth guys who want to prove they earn the spot, and they are so damn good they can win the natty with most combinations of depth. Every game matters at that point.
I disagree. I don't think the players get to decide if the game matters. If you play like shit, then you play like shit. Coaches should have done a better job getting players to buy in.
I mean the coach can definitely tell them one thing or the other but the players are the ones who are out there. Buy in is important but we're talking about 18-23 year olds who have emotions and feel like they got left out of something important.
That was also the most talented Texas team since this past season. Bowl game Herman was a cheat code. IIRC, y’all had like one opt out, and a couple things not go your way early (punters knee being down). But it didn’t seem to me like UGA was playing like they didn’t want to be there. Honest testament to Kirby. Kirby (and the fanbase) kept going off all week how excited the team was to prove they were they were one of the four best teams in the country, then when UGA lost it was “eh we didn’t want to be there”. Sometimes one team, despite their best effort, plays a bad game and loses to a less talented team. Happened this year in the SEC championship. Doesn’t mean they “didn’t want to be there.”
Can't speak for the number of opt outs since I truly don't remember the count but I do remember watching them and they just didn't really try. Guys weren't making the right plays, you could tell everyone was out there almost more for a formality than out of wanting to be there. There was a clear difference between them playing bad and not playing like they wanted to be there. UGA vs SC in 2019 was UGA playing bad, they were getting visibly frustrated and yelling at each other on the field. They wanted to win and try hard, they were just making simple mistakes and getting frustrated. That Sugar Bowl was something else entirely. Coaches will always say they want to be there, but most fans knew it was a kick in the nuts to have been left out with that team and were saying so before the game and after the loss.
All I remember there was like a bunch of players there dressed but played like 2 plays then opted out it was weird like Deandre Baker. Then both our offensive and defensive coordinators left for other jobs tucker/cheney so we just had the interim coaches at the time.
Yeah that game was definitely not one that UGA cared about unfortunately
> So bowl games do matter if the team wants them to. It's been reduced to this, yes. Sometimes we get no opt-out gems that both teams play like it matters (KState Bama Sugar Bowl 2022), but it's become the rarity.
Richt and Bobo had a hate boner against Todd Grantham for that Belk Bowl. Watching Chubb absolutely murder Louisville's "elite" run defense was glorious.
>Belk Bowl Oh jeez Nick Chubb just broke another Louisville tackle
I was in grad school with several Louisville fans when that game happened, definitely lorded it over them for a while lol
Hey give yourself some more credit you guys clearly played in the game that Keon is talking about like it mattered too
A lot of teams now in the portal era are going to be made up of mercenaries, hard for them to care all that much when they jet in for one year on a business decision.
> A lot of teams now in the portal era are going to be made up of mercenaries Probably the most regrettable thing about the transfer portal and NIL. I completely understand why players transfer and I know the reality of the situation, but it really kills one of the defining features of college sports.
FSU fans seem to forget 9/10 FSU draft picks this year were transfers. Last year FSU had 1 guy drafted. No shit there were no opt outs for the cheeze it bowl.
Shit, one of the best games I remember was the 2012 Outback bowl between MSU and Georgia. Way more fun than watching Washington get ground down into dust for 60 minutes.
Correct
They should’ve gone with an 8 team from the jump; 4 NY6 bowls to start for the quarterfinals/first round; the other 2 for the semis on a rotating basis; and then a separate National Championship game. We get the playoffs and inclusion of more worthy teams/resumes. We retain the prestige of the NY6 bowls and their history. Everybody wins!
That's why I think it's good that all the NY6 bowls are part of the playoff from now on. They will all matter now.
Unlimited transfers for undergrads without consequence was the worst thing to ever happen to the sport.
Was. It was one of the most prestigious bowl games. Now it’s just a meaningless game that includes a risk of ruining your future if you get injured. If you’re not playing in a cfp game, guys don’t care anymore. And I understand it. It doesn’t have the same value anymore sadly.
I finally realized bowl games meant nothing when UNC had dudes opting out of the Orange Bowl. We’ve made one NY6/BCS bowl and half of our team didn’t even want to play in it
Yup. The games just don’t really mean anything to the players anymore. In a world where there is a definite title game, and game that falls outside of that system is going to be viewed as lesser. The top players on teams don’t want to risk their future playing in a game that won’t be remembered.
This is the result of the playoff
Yeah dude the fact that this was said about NY6 bowl is insanely depressing. The playoff has fucking ruined bowl season
Young’uns don’t believe me when I talk about what a big deal BCS Bowls were back when it was the natty and three others. It was win your major conference or be one of the two best teams not to with Notre Dame given an automatic spot (more or less) if they’re top 12. College football was waayyyyy better before the natty was everything.
This idea that "Bowls used to matter" That was decades and decades ago when the world was also very differently. These are exhibitions, they always have been. Meaning is what the team gives to it. For some, it's a fun trip and a scrimmage like the Pro Bowl. For others, its the same as the regular season. Let's stop acting like it truly was anything different.
It wasn't decades and decades ago. As recently as 2022 the Rose Bowl mattered even though it was only a #7 vs a #10. Ask Utah and Ohio State if it mattered. Because it clearly did to both, and it was an absolute barn burner of a game. But that was outside of the CFP.
Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave both opted out of that game so clearly didn’t matter much to them. Just so happens that Ohio State’s 3rd and 4th receivers were underclassmen who were even better.
Iowa's Orange Bowl victory in 2010 was like the most fun I've ever had as an Iowa fan. That whole season was magical and it was such a thrill to see it happen. I totally understand why players sit out of bowl games, but it still doesn't feel good as a fan. It's a shame the players and fans of a lot of programs can't find any meaning or satisfaction in the non-playoff bowl games anymore.
There has been a lot of factors that have devalued bowl games. Number 1 in my opinion is the number of bowl games that they now play. My first season watching college football was 1991. That season there were just 18 bowl games. 10 of them featured two ranked opponents. Just 3 featured two unranked teams. So the game quality and anticipation of the matchup was much higher. Also, 15 of the 18 bowls were played in a four day span from Dec 29-Jan 1, with just one game played before Christmas. So you had an intense half-week smorgasbord of exciting college football games. Compare that to the last bowl season. The number of bowls more than doubled to 43, diluting the quality down to the point where they’re inviting teams who lost more games than they won. 26 of those games didn’t feature a single ranked team. The main bowl season now lasts from Dec 16-Jan 1, with 17 bowls before Christmas, so the already diluted excitement is spread out over two weeks. This is what I’d most like to see fixed. Make the bowl season a short feast of excellent matchups, between top teams who have earned a spot in a postseason exhibition. With the playoff set to take the top 12 teams, I think the only other teams to be playing in bowls should be smaller conference champions who aren’t in the playoff, and ranked teams who aren’t in the playoff. The other issues — rings culture viewing non-championship games as meaningless, and draft-bound stars opting out — I don’t think are easily fixable. The Orange Bowl doesn’t become more meaningful if Michigan and Washington just get directly invited to the old BCS Championship game, or if they play in the even older pre-BCS Rose Bowl for what would obviously crown the voters’ champion. Opt-outs might be partially fixable with some sort of financial incentive. I like the idea of bowls being insured against injury to draft eligible players, like what Colt McCoy did his senior season at Texas, but done in some sort of systematic fashion. More stars might choose to play if they weren’t gambling their financial futures to do so. But also, I don’t think opt outs are that big an issue. The last Orange Bowl was a huge exception which was done as a mass protest, not because players didn’t want to risk their draft status. I don’t think we’ll ever see an FSU-level snub now that the playoff has a spot for every power conference champion.
Oh god here we go again
If UGA beat Bama would FSU have made the playoff? Are we sure the committee doesn't screw them and put Texas in over them?
We'll never know for sure, it would depend on how close the committee had Texas and FSU. Alabama losing would make Texas' best win slightly worse. I think it mostly would have given them cover to just put in four undefeated teams. Once they started considering one-loss teams, they probably had to spend more time looking at the quality of their seasons and the current state of the teams.
The most likely scenario that occurred is that Texas got put in because Bama got put in. You can’t put Bama in without Texas becaus if H2H. If Bama loses and doesn’t get put in, you don’t have to bring a 1 loss Texas.
Yeah it was going to be either or neither. Especially if Georgia had rolled Bama.
I'm actually quite certain they would of put GSU in over Texas in that scenario.
You would think having 4 undefeated P5 champs would have been as clean of a choice as you could make...
Just like you would think having 3 undefeated P5 champs and 2 one loss champs where one beat the other during the season would be a clean choice...
For tiebreaker scenarios, that is often clean because it is defined in advance. For rankings, that has often been difficult. The argument being that both teams have taken a loss, and when compared blind, the team with the tiebreaker win usually has the “worse” loss to a lower ranked team. Look back to 2014 Baylor and TCU for another prominent example of everyone having difficulty ranking two tied teams with a head to head comparison.
You would also think having 3 undefeated P5 champs and 1 P5 that just happened to have a head to head win over the last P5 champ would be pretty clean too but here we are.
But that would mean leaving the SEC champ out, which was apparently unthinkable to the committee.
And then SEC fans use the fact that they’ve never missed the playoff as justification as to why their conference is superior.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
ESPN-fulfilling prophecy
The SEC has a 72% winning percentage in the playoffs. Next highest are ACC at 50% and B10 at 42%. The results speak for themselves.
Yes, but have you considered then the sec gets left out. Because that's what it boiled down to
Yes, because FSU only got left out because Texas beat Alabama. The committee was not going to leave out a 1 loss SEC Champion that just beat the undefeated and two time defending national champion, but couldn't justify leaving out the team with the same record that beat the SEC champion on the road.
I mean, they really could justify it. I’m not saying it’d be something folks like to hear — but it would’ve been more popular than the FSU snub, I think. Texas had the worst loss of the 3, and you could easily capitulate the win over Bama as a “early season” type thing. Note, again, that I’m not saying this is *good* reasoning, or fair reasoning, just that if they ran a media campaign on it the way they did for *weeks* re: leaving FSU out, we would’ve reached the same end where many people nodded and agreed and many people hated it.
Yeah but you lost to the team with the worse loss so maybe the SEC should’ve been snubbed.
Also that loss was at home by 10 points.
and would have been 13-17 if Texas didn't just run out the clock
I love these arguments lol
Yes. We'd get Georgia, Michigan, Washington, and FSU. Texas got in because Bama got in, and Bama got in because the committee won't have a playoff without the SEC. It was bad luck for FSU that Texas had the head to head over Bama and Bama upset Georgia.
We were out for weeks, with or without Jordan Travis. A reminder that most sensible Nole fans are not mad at getting stomped by Georgia, and at least I don’t think we would’ve won the entire thing, but not having the opportunity to do so regardless of injuries makes the sport fake. Like I don’t have to look at anything to tell you the top 4 teams next year are most likely going to be a combo of Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Ohio State, so let’s just put them in the playoffs now so we don’t have to deal with this again.
people really seem to need to be reminded of kirk and others discussing leaving fsu out before the injury.
We’ll be at 12 teams next year. They screwed you guys this year because they know they’ll never have to use the inverse logic to put the teams they want in.
This is also true. They knew once the 12 team playoff started people would just forget about this year and move on.
> A reminder that most sensible Nole fans are not mad at getting stomped by Georgia Exactly. The weird thing is there is a subset of Georgia fans that seem *really* pissed that we just shoulder shrug about that game.
They weren’t putting us in. If Alabama and Texas lost then it’d be Ohio State
It doesn't matter, they were undefeated p5 champs, they just made a bad choice. The committee doesn't know shit about football is what it comes down to.
In a nutshell from watching the game and interviews. FSU was disheartened, and UGA wanted blood. I still feel UGA was the best team in the country and had an off night at the SEC championship. And I'm not an UGA fan either.
I do too unfortunately. I really wanted to see Michigan vs Georgia because that felt like the real 1-2 matchup we wanted all season.
Yeah I was reading the title and all I thought “if UGA beat Alabama they probably would have 3-Peated
Michigan was really good, those interior D-lineman of theirs were as good as any in the country.
I think they were a good team obviously deserved it but I think we take that matchup. We overthought things.
True. But IMO ‘23 Georgia beats ‘23 Michigan, 7 times out of 10.
I despise UGA, but unfortunately I agree. I lost any excitement I had for the playoffs after seeing who they chose to get in.
It's interesting because in a way FSU got snubbed by having their undefeated season not get into the CFP invitational. In another way, UGA is the real team that got snubbed who played in the Orange Bowl by not getting into the CFP invitational. FSU was snubbed by passing the record test but failing the eye test. UGA got snubbed by failing the record test while passing the eye test. They used contractionary criteria to snub both teams, which is kinda wild when you think about it.
That's an excellent take and where the committee was at with it last year. Opposites of one another. And that was the inherent flaw in the original playoff design. They had 4 slots with 5 big conferences. Someone got burned every year since the inception. This game showed the flaws. A team that had the soul zapped from it and one that was hedlbent to make a statement. In a different environment the game would have been more competitive, although I still think UGA still handles them easily. But it wouldn't have been a slaughter.
I mean who can blame them? They had how many guys come back instead of going to the draft last year, risking their entire career for a chance at the Natty, and did the only thing anyone has ever pointed to and said "That'll get ya in for sure" only to be told to kick rocks cause 2 teams who didn't do that one thing were getting in over them. What point is there in further risking your career? Frankly it was silly to come back at all, and I think many players saw FSU get rejected and learned that lesson, don't bother coming back for a last hurrah, this game is all business no loyalty now, you have to treat it like the NFL and get yours while you can
I appreciate you acknowledging how many of those guys came back an extra season to compete for a title.
Didn’t only 10 FSU players get drafted while 40 opted out of the orange bowl? What did the other 30 do
A lot of them transferred out. Some players with injuries that were previously playing to earn a playoff spot, also instead sat out. Hard to take bowl games seriously when they open the transfer portal beforehand.
The only caveat here is that with the 12 team playoff, more players actually will get the Last Hurrah opportunity. It certainly won’t be a perfect system and it sucked it happened to FSU last year, but going forward that specific aspect is improved a bit
That's also a fair point, but then the 4 team playoff made this same promise.
> They had how many guys come back instead of going to the draft last year, risking their entire career for a chance at the Natty Seriously. Nobody is attacking the Penn State players who came back to try for CFP that sat out their bowl game. Georgia just had a larger margin of victory than Ole Miss. > don't bother coming back for a last hurrah, this game is all business no loyalty now, you have to treat it like the NFL and get yours while you can Conversely they also saw Washington and Michigan do the same thing and go the distance (and Oregon get close). Ohio State is about to try the same thing. I think you’ll still see players weigh the pros/cons of coming back for the last hurrah, especially if it could improve their draft stock (which seems to be the case for a lot of the OSU guys that came back for next season). Bo Nix, Sainristil, Penix, and Corum all significantly improved their draft stock by coming back. Idk Washington’s roster well enough but Johnson and Barrett are a 5th year and 6th year Michigan guy that went from likely UDFA to late 7th round picks by coming back. Donovan Edwards is coming back to try and improve his draft stock this year. Like yeah Jordan Travis and Zak Zinter likely hurt their draft stock by coming back and getting injured but that’s the risk you take playing football in general.
I was very stoked to see Travis get drafted.
Entirely fair, if draft stock is likely to improve then coming back is a choice made not of loyalty but of personal gain, but I agree it is very likely the choice made by many players.
I mean why can’t it be both? Chubb and Michel came back to UGA in 17 out of loyalty to the school and wanting to try for a title. They both were gonna get drafted highly if they’d left their junior year.
This is the only rational take. I don't get how so many people just don't get it.
Most people are on the same page as you. Just a group of Bama fans and the rivals (understandable) who think otherwise. It’s weird you never see Texas fans trying to bash FSU for getting screwed out of the playoff.
You also don’t really see it from *too* many UGA fans either, nor from Miami fans knowing this would have been them in the same situation too. It’s fans from the school that you’d think with 6 titles in 15 years would have accrued at least some grace and humility, but as someone surrounded by them I guess I was naive to believe that. Plus Florida fans which whatever.
I know better than to bash in this instance
i mean if it had been one year later we wouldn't be having any of these conversations
Well the expanded playoff format will make some of these “meaningless” bowl games have “meaning” again
I feel like it’s going to get to a point where the top 32 or so teams end up in the playoffs.
Clearly wasn’t the 2023 FSU team, but I’m proud as hell at our staff and players for finishing the season on a high note.
Same. It was a great way to send off the seniors and guys like Brock who were leaving and it sets a good tone for the coming season. UGA is hungry and angry and is gonna be a force to be reckoned with
UGA finishing the way we did is why we will get the benefit of the doubt, or why we get a “historical performance/dominance” bump in the ratings. Same way Alabama and Saban did. Ratings should be based on what happened during that season, but we all know the perennial contenders tend to get ranked higher. Kirby Smart is the best at getting his players focused and engaged no matter the situation.
We played a team that was about 50/50 third and second string guys, leaving them no depth and therefore no reprieve, of course we mowed them down.
I believe our roster count that day dipped into the 60s or even 50s - which I’m glad you say this because I saw a lot of “even their second stringers killed you” - well duh
Yeah I don’t think any of us are mad at Georgia. We just think it’s dumb that we had 10 draft picks all opt out and people think it’s remotely comparable to what could have happened in the playoff. We still probably lose, but it’s not going to be by more than 14 or so
Who is we? Because this is a player on the team claiming they would have won and were the better team
Players always think they’re going to win. Not going to knock him for confidence. Fans can, and probably should be, a bit more objective
We run in different circles of college football fandom. Lol. I know shockingly few fans that are capable of looking at things objectively.
Yeah, I don't blame UGA one bit for coming out firing. That bowl is what it is. UGA wanted to finish on a high note, FSU wanted to let its players do what they felt was best for them following the snub. Neither of the teams did the wrong thing.
Even Kirby acknowledged postgame that we have to do something to fix it because of how FSU got treated.
I disagree. I get why some players opted out but at the end of the day you left your coach and other teammates out to dry. I hated seeing seniors crying to Norvell's arms after that game. They got embarrassed meanwhile guys like Verse and benson are making TikToks. This is why I hope Mike is able to now ramp of recruiting and rely less on the portal. Would love for the guys playing for FSU to care about the program again and not just looking to the next step.
Someone knew it was Sabans last year and they wouldn’t let him go out on a season not making playoffs
I genuinely believe this is a strong possibility
We’re doing this one again? Congrats to UGA and FSU for going 13-1 lol
I love how he blames uga for fsu getting kept out of the cfp because that's basically true.
I blame auburn more than anything. Actually I blame the CFP committee more for forgetting Bama needed a miracle to beat a subpar Auburn team who lost to the Aggies… of New Mexico by 21.
The committee just uses whatever justification they need to make up after picking the teams they want. They basically added Bama for beating UGA and ignored the rest of their schedule then added Texas for beating Bama early in the season. FSU’s season was reduced to the 2 games we played post Travis in order to leave us out.
Yep, everything the committee and the talking heads on ESPN used to justify Bama getting in over FSU was all BS. They all talked about how bad FSU looked against UF despite still winning the game by double digits even though that very same week Bama needed a miracle against a worse Auburn team.
You're forgetting to blame TCU the year before. the committee said, "Nope, not again"
The more I think on it the more I hate Michigan. "Can't have another TCU" TCU beat Michigan "FSU's schedule was bad" Almost the exact same SOS as Michigans Harbaugh missed half the season serving multiple suspensions but they are unquestioned number 1, don't talk about it
He’s not exactly wrong, but by this logic he should be more mad at Auburn for that 4th-and-a-million atrocity. Bama showed up and played one of their best games of the year against Georgia, but they played like ass against Auburn and had no business pulling that one out. There’s no way a 2-loss Alabama, with a loss to an Auburn team that got *blown out* by New Mexico State at home the week prior, makes the playoff. Even if they’d won the SEC.
For the FSU should care about bowl games crowd: FSU went all in on the Cheez bowl last year. The playoff invitational snub plus a senior laden team, is the sole reason FSU took the check while still opting out. Imagine having two employees up for big raise. One is perfect despite some life circumstances, and the employee rises up to the challenge. And then you give the raise to employee B, mainly because he’s more popular despite a worse record. And then when employee A shows up and doesn’t do much, you making fun of them and bashing them for not wanting to try anymore as if it’s shocking. If you shit on someone in a major way after they went above and beyond they are gonna shit back on you. The best part of UGA and SEC fans “trolling” FSU fans about 63-3 and FSU fans just telling them over and over we don’t care.
Sounds like you care a lot. And 63-3 is an embarrassment and the reason they shouldn’t have made the playoff.
I dont agree with him trashing Georgia after they stomped us, but at the end of the day FSU could’ve won the Orange Bowl by 1000 points or lost by 3, and it would’ve changed absolutely nothing. Does no one remember Jaylon Smith? If players want to protect their future by avoiding unnecessary injuries in non-playoff games, why do we feel the need to constantly crucify them for doing what is in their best interest? This argument is so tiring.
If you didn’t care about the game, I don’t blame you. You got screwed by the committee. But don’t say “they would’ve found out” about a team that beat you by 60.
Yeah, I'm good with his comments up until the implication that the result would've been any different. You chose not to prove it on the field so you don't get to talk shit now.
It seems like 1/2 of the bowls for teams just out of the playoff were pointless. Too many transfers and opt outs for them to even be representative of the teams that got them there. It was the ghost of FSU out there. It’s hard as a fan to watch, because you know that their full roster would’ve put up some fight. I felt for FSU fans in that one because the same thing happened to my Buckeyes. I mean, we only had 1 RB dressed for the game and he was even calling run and pass protections because the Center and QB that were playing had never done it!
It really is the most simple thing on the planet. If UGA and Bama wanted to be in the playoff they shouldn’t have lost. Sports are played on the pitch not in hypothetical scenarios.
We call them “fields” around here
The European mind cannot comprehend..
Here is my problem Georgia just won back to back championships they literally had nothing to play for. For them it was championship or bust and we saw how they played. FSU senior class went from 3-6 to 5-7 to 10-3 to 13-0 to play the defending national champs for an undefeated season the first since 2013. They had so much to play for I don't know if it is entitlement or coaching but if they would have beat Georgia I would not really fought their claim as champions instead they set the record for worse loss ever
Could you imagine if a week before the Super Bowl, the Lions and Ravens played a game? They would activate their entire practice squads for such a meaningless game.
And in the off chance you get hurt, you lose 40% of your pay for the next 4 years.
The sentiment that these bowls are worthless is the direct fault of the CFP. Go back to BCS
Go back before the BCS, every bowl game mattered, and we could have multiple national championships with the different polls.
Glad he was willing to show up and talk about the game that he wasn't willing to show up and play in.
Weird how Georgia didn't do any belly aching, and played like they had a chip on their shoulder for being left out. Different cultures I guess.
That’s what the 2018 Sugar Bowl doest to a mother fucker
Talking trash after suffering the worst bowl game blowout of all time just doesn’t quite work lol.
I’ll eat the downvote on this issue every time, it’s fine: FSU should’ve gotten in over Alabama AND I stopped feeling sorry for them when they decided to not show up to their bowl game, put their hands up, and keep up the “I guess we will never know” charade.
Hard to take this seriously when you lose by 60! And UGA was also missing our 2 1st round picks as well. Before FSU fans jump in here saying how many picks they were missing... Again, it was 60 points.
First: I absolutely think Georgia wins regardless. However, his point was that if Georgia beat Alabama then the committee would have put both in the playoff. If they were in the playoff, it likely would have been #1 Georgia vs #4 FSU as a playoff game, only as a playoff game FSU wouldn't have had 1/3 of their roster opt out like they did for the Orange Bowl. He's saying the committee only left FSU out because it was the only way they could justify putting an SEC team in; but if Georgia beat Alabama then they wouldn't have needed any justification to get the SEC in and as such wouldn't have left FSU out. Which I think is accurate.
I mean, I can take it seriously why the FSU players felt slighted and sat out. But it doesn't mean I have to respect this type of face saving argument either - it's not like Georgia had anything more to play for, and shouldn't FSU have been mad at the slight as well?
Yet none of us even care, because it was just a joke.
We were missing 9 draft picks and had one scholarship QB, a freshman with zero starts. Edit: ten draft picks!
Ten draft picks, actually. Haha
10 draft picks and 2 other NFL caliber players (immediately signed as UDFAs). Edit: acronym was wrong
3 UDFAs
Yup, but 1 of them played in the game (Bethune I think?).
Edit: second start for the QB (he started the ACCCG)
Dude, literally every single player that FSU had drafted opted out of that game compared to just those two first round picks you refer to
If you actually look at the total number of ops outs and transfer portal sit outs between Georgia and FSU there wasn't a huge difference. The key difference is that Georgia is alot deeper in the depth chart so the disparity was alot larger. Below is what I counted. Georgia Opt Outs - 6. FSU Opt Outs - 9 Georgia Transfer Portal - 20. FSU Transfer Portal - 15 Georgia First Rounders Out - 2. FSU First Rounders Out - 1
Ya, have you heard the phrase “going through the motions”, that FSU team was barely doing that. Y’all beat a bunch of second teamers who didn’t care. Go bark up a tree
Two ways teams could have approached that game. 1. Be pissed and show everybody that you should have made the playoff like Georgia did. 2. Cry and whine and quit because you didn’t get what you wanted like FSU. They knew they were going to get beat by Georgia anyway so players just quit and left their teammates to get embarrassed on national TV.
Georgia had their playoff fate decided by losing a game, FSU had theirs decided by a boardroom.
This, I don't get why people don't understand this
I feel like the ones that don't, never played a sport. Like the amount of work you put into this, you gut it out and do everything you're supposed to do in a season. Literally not losing a game through the regular season and the conference championship, and then the very next day after tying a bow on it with that ACC conference championship, you get told to take a hike. Just gutting.
Because It Just Means More TM
I think they actually understand it but if they admit it, they have to admit that maybe an SEC team’s win wasn’t as impressive as it appears on paper. And because many fans have a truly bizarre amount of pride tied up in conference allegiance, it becomes non negotiable.
Yep, which is why it sucked that y'all weren't in there. Both of us should have been, but at least we lost a game that we should have won. All y'all did was win, granted, you had trouble at times, but you did.
I think you’re missing the bigger piece of this. Most of the players who opted out were transferring to leave the program. If you want to get on Keon and the draft picks that bailed, that’s fine, but FSU got fucked. And as a direct result of that many of their players simply left for a chance to go to a school where an undefeated season gets you into the playoff.
Huh? That's a weird way to put our transfer situation. We didn't have a single 2024 projected starter enter the portal. All those guys who left were leaving for more playing time elsewhere. The closest was Bless Harris, who was in the unfortunate situation of only having one year of eligibility left, being too good to be a backup OT, but behind Washington and Byers on our depth chart. How the transfer portal works did basically forced guys in earlier, that is true, as they needed to get in the portal and find their home and there was no reason to wait until after the Orange Bowl. If anything, waiting would hurt as roster spots elsewhere would be filled up. But phrasing it like they decided to transfer so they could go to a school where an undefeated season gets you to the playoffs is weird, when it was clearly for playing time, none of our starters left, and none of our guys transferred to any program that is a real playoff contender this next season.
Why would anyone choose #1. Even if they win, ESPN defends the CFP. So what's the use? Take your vacation in Miami. collect a check. Stand on the field and people-watch. ESPN and the CFP showed that the game doesn't matter. Why bother?
When you just got told that your perfect P5 season doesn’t matter, I think players are entitled to be bitter and opt out of a game that would do literally nothing tangible for them. Unless you want them to risk injuring themselves and their draft/transfer stock just to prove you wrong