Despite winning the ACC Championship and going 13-0, Florida State was left out of the College Football Playoff in favor of 12-1 Alabama. The decision drove mixed reactions.
Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key held his bowl game announcement press conference and talked about the decision.
“You have an undefeated conference champion… to see what they have done, their defense played outstanding last night, they are down to their third-string quarterback and we went through that last year, having to be down quarterbacks and the adversity you go through and I think I have said it before, you want the sign of a really good football team, you lose not just one, but two quarterbacks at that spot and you have to go out and play games and that is the mark of a really good team, a well-coached team, and just all-around, a really good football team.
“There are a lot of people that have to make those decisions, those are not anything I have any input on at all, but just from a casual observer and a massive fan of the game of football, I hate it for Florida State, I hate it for Mike (Norvell), and I hate it for those players.”
Florida coach Mike Norvell was very angry about the decision.
“I am disgusted and infuriated with the committee’s decision today to have what was earned on the field taken away because a small group of people decided they knew better than the results of the games,” Norvell said in a statement. “What is the point of playing games? Do you tell players it is OK to quit if someone goes down? Do you not play a senior on Senior Day for fear of injury? Where is the motivation to schedule challenging nonconference games?
We are not only an undefeated P5 conference champion, but we also played two P5 non-conference games away from home and won both of them. I don’t understand how we are supposed to think this is an acceptable way to evaluate a team. … What happened today goes against everything that is true and right in college football,” he said.
Florida State, as the No. 5 seed, will face the two-time defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs (No. 6) in the Capital One Orange Bowl on Dec. 30.
