No, the mandate was not who is more DESERVING, but the 4 BEST teams. FACT
- The selection committee’s task will be to select the best teams, rank the teams for inclusion in the playoff and selected other bowl games and then assign the teams to sites.
Again, here are the criteria for picking the teams:
- The selection committee will select the teams using a process that distinguishes among otherwise comparable teams by considering:
- Conference championships won,
- Strength of schedule,
- Head‐to‐head competition,
- Comparative outcomes of common opponents (without incenting margin of victory), and
- Other relevant factors such as unavailability of key players and coaches that may have affected a team’s performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason performance.
FACT - It is (and has been since the playoff was implemented) explicitly stated that "unavailability of key players" which likely will affect its postseason performance. This would not have been placed in the criteria if DESERVING was the sole determinant.
Another fact is, this whole argument is a moot point. It won't matter next year nor going forward. Will the ACC be discriminated against because of its perception as a weak football conference when it comes to getting at-large teams picked? Absolutely. However, the committee followed its mandate and criteria in picking teams THIS YEAR. A literal "bad break" for FSU. Too bad, so sad, ****'em.
This is how dumb you are.
You copied and pasted a bunch of words. You selectively highlighted a bunch of words.
And then you chose NOT to highlight the words "othewise comparable teams". Which is the most important phrase that dopes like you choose to skip over, as if it has no meaning.
What it does NOT mean is that "everyone is comparable". If that was the case, then you would just say that the Top 7 teams this year (all of whom had 0 or 1 losses, and all to one another, EXCEPT for the Texas loss to Oklahoma) would all be "comparable".
Ah, but that's not what those words mean. What those words mean is that you create groups or tiers of COMPARABLE teams, and THEN AND ONLY THEN do you move on to the differentiation criteria.
And simply stated, there were THREE undefeated Power Five schools that won their conference championships. So, yes, Michigan and Washington and F$U should have been on Tier 1. Regardless of Travis being injured.
The CFP Committee ALREADY TOLD THE WORLD that it used the tier ranking system. Except that they admitted that the three "otherwise comparable teams" that they put into the "automatically in the Final Four" category were Michigan, Washington, AND TEXAS. Which is bull****. As Texas had the "worst loss" of any of the 1-loss teams, having lost to Oklahoma.
The reality is that it has NEVER been the charge or mission or province of the BCS/CFP committees to toss out the entirety of college seasons to hold a de novo vote on the 2 (or 4) hottest/least-injured teams in December. It has ALWAYS been the charge/mission/province of these selection committees to make difficult "close-calls" when there are more undefeated teams than available slots, or more 1-loss teams than available slots. That's why, for over 25 years, there has never been an undefeated P5 conference champion (omitting teams on probation) that has been denied the chance to play for the national championship.
This was a fixed selection process that was ALWAYS going to result in at least one SEC team being included in the Final Four. It was NEVER about selecting the best teams. In the last couple of weeks of the season, it suddenly transformed into "finding any articulable reason to justify taking an SEC team at any cost".
That is the truth, regardless of how you try to torture the words that YOU cut-and-pasted. Don't ignore the inconvenient words that you don't want to deal with. Be honest for once in your miserable life.
There were three tiers:
1. Undefeated P5 conference champions
2. 1-loss P5 conference champions
3. 1-loss P5 teams that did not win their conferences
Michigan, Washington, and F$U were in Tier 1.
Texas and Alabama were in Tier 2. And Texas should have been chosen over Alabama based on head-to-head.
END OF PROCESS.
Georgia was the absolute best "number six" team of all time.
Ohio Taint got shut out of having a second chance to offset the Michigan loss...based on the Big 10 continuing to use divisions for its championship matchup.
END OF PROCESS.
