After multitudes of controversy, loads of complaining, and 29 (!!) missing scholarship players, Florida State lost 63-3 to Georgia in the Orange Bowl.
63-3.
Florida State players and fans spent all month babbling on and on about the playoff committee’s decision to leave them out of the championship four and followed it up by quitting on the season, the coach, and the program.
By pitting the Seminoles against Georgia in that bowl game, the committee gave Florida State a golden opportunity to prove everyone wrong and show why it actually belonged in the playoff.
Instead, the Seminoles cried like whiny babies and gave up that opportunity.
Now, let me also say that I thought Florida State got screwed. If Jordan Travis hadn’t gotten injured late in the season, it would have been in without a doubt. It’s incredibly shitty, but the committee has to split hairs when selecting the four teams, and Travis’s absence was a fairly decisive strand that went against FSU.
Additionally, after watching the semifinals, I’m confident Florida State’s defense at full strength would have kept any game competitive against Michigan, Washington, Alabama, or Texas.
However, the Seminoles’ collective reaction to getting left out showed me that they didn’t deserve a playoff berth AND that the committee was spot on.
Take Georgia’s response to getting left out as the polar opposite reaction. I don’t think it was a strong claim given the circumstances, but the Bulldogs were arguably the only other team left out with any sort of claim to the fourth spot.
Sure, Kirby Smart and company were disappointed to miss out, but there wasn’t any whining. There wasn’t any semblance of quitting. Georgia put its head down and prepared for a month to kick Florida State’s ass, and they did.
Oh, and Smart didn’t have a single player opt out of the game. It clearly meant something to Georgia to win a New Years’ Six game, even if it got left out of the playoff.
That’s a championship culture and mindset that Florida State simply doesn’t have at this point.
Even Smart himself was clearly disappointed after the game that Florida State was non-competitive in a game that should have meant a lot to BOTH programs, not just one.
I agree with Smart that college football as a whole is largely at fault for the bowl game opt-out phenomenon, but that’s probably a different blog altogether.
A simple message to Florida State: You can’t whine and moan about getting left out of the playoff and then turn around and give up on what should have been an incredibly important game.
The entire reaction over the course of the last month from the Seminole collective is proof enough that you didn’t belong in that playoff four, and you certainly didn’t have the mettle to win once you got into the playoff.
Mike Norvell deserved better. Jordan Travis deserved better. Most of the fans deserved better. And yet, you have players like Keon Coleman, who chose not to play in the Orange Bowl, going online and still claiming they should have been in the playoff.
If you couldn’t get up for a potentially program-defining postseason game against the back-to-back defending champs, what makes you think you would’ve been ready to face a team that clearly earned a spot in the playoff as the committee’s number one seed?
You showed your true colors, Seminoles. I don’t want to hear any more of it.
Follow Nick Hedges on Twitter @nicktrimshedges or Instagram @nicktrimshedges