Connelly: How the CFP committee got it all wrong with Florida State

For most of the past decade, the CFP committee has gone out of its way to insist it is choosing the best four teams for the playoff, not the most deserving, and the only redeeming aspect of that was the fact that it was patently untrue. From 2022 TCU to 2021 Cincinnati to 2018 (and 2019) Oklahoma to 2015 Michigan State and even 2014 Florida State, the committee included plenty of teams that were in no way among the four best teams in the country. Some were closer than others, but to a team they all deserved to be there because of what they had accomplished in actually winning games on the field. Each of the first 39 teams the committee selected was justifiable. Then, with its 40th pick, it finally went "best" over "most deserving."

Well, sort of. This is the worst Alabama team in 15 years, one that ranks just seventh in SP+ and fifth in FPI and only sporadically looked like anything close to a playoff team. But hey, it has a healthy quarterback at least.

In two games without Travis, FSU's offense indeed cratered. SP+ projections are not adjusted for injury, so it can be a pretty useful tool for understanding the impact of a given injury. And the impact of Travis' injury was dire: Against Florida and Louisville, the Seminoles' offense scored a combined 30 fewer points than projected. (Second-stringer Tate Rodemaker also was injured and didn't play against Louisville in the ACC championship game, meaning the Noles had to face the No. 26 defense in the country, per SP+, with third-string freshman Brock Glenn. They would have had Rodemaker back for the postseason, however.)

In that same span, however, the FSU defense also allowed 19.5 fewer points. It held Florida to a season low in yards (232, 81 fewer than any other game) and yards per play (3.9), then did exactly the same thing to Louisville. The Cardinals' previous season lows were 306 yards and 4.8 yards per play against NC State in September; FSU allowed them 188 yards and 2.7.

Forced to step up due to the Seminoles' offensive struggles, FSU's defense suddenly became the best in the sport. And because of that, the Seminoles beat Florida by more points on the road (nine) than No. 9 Missouri had the week before at home (two), then beat Louisville (24th in SP+) by more than Alabama beat Auburn (37th) and Arkansas (58th) combined. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, had FSU been playing South Florida on Saturday night, the Noles would have won by more than the 14-point margin Alabama mustered in September, too.

But none of that matters. FSU's offense struggled, and in a sport that already has the smallest imaginable sample size, the committee therefore decided that only 1½ games should end up determining a playoff slot: Alabama-Georgia and the half of FSU-Louisville that happened when the Seminoles had the ball.

The committee decided to choose a team that could win -- and to be sure, Alabama could absolutely win the whole damn thing now that it's gotten a lifeline -- over a team that actually deserved to be there. And it fulfilled every seemingly unfounded conspiracy theory anyone has ever had about the power of TV ratings, the SEC and/or the sport's biggest brands in the decision-making process.

"For many of us, today's decision by the committee has forever damaged the credibility of the institution that is the College Football Playoff," Alford said. "And, saddest of all, it was self-inflicted. They chose predictive competitiveness over proven performance; subjectivity over fact."

This isn't how any other sport -- or, more importantly, any other level of football -- goes about choosing who gets to play for its title. And it's inexcusable.

Honestly, the committee should have just committed to its logic and ranked Florida State about seventh or eighth. Georgia and Ohio State, after all, would both be favored over FSU in a bowl game, right? Instead, it bumped the Seminoles down just enough to leave them out. That almost felt more disrespectful.

Obviously the system changes next year, when the playoff expands to 12 teams and begins handing automatic bids to conference champions. That will allow the committee to hedge its bets here and there -- like the basketball committee did in bumping Cincinnati to a 2-seed in 2000 after Kenyon Martin's injury -- while still assuring that actually deserving teams get a shot at the title.

With the excellent work Mike Norvell has done in rebuilding a broken FSU program over the past four years, odds are solid that he will craft another playoff-worthy team, one that the committee might deign to include even if the injury bug bites again. But that won't change what it just did to the Seminoles, and for virtually anyone outside of the very top of the college football oligarchy, it won't undo the damage it did to the reputation of the entire enterprise in the final year of the four-team era.

How Alabama took over in Atlanta

Whether or not I think Alabama deserved a slot in the CFP, it got one. And it did so by doing something no one had done since it pulled off the feat two years ago: beating Georgia. And it took both elite defense and some incredibly well-timed brilliance from Jalen Milroe.

According to FPI, Alabama's in-game win probability in Saturday's SEC championship game bottomed out at 28.5% after its second straight three-and-out to start the game. The Crimson Tide had gained just 4 yards in six plays, and the Bulldogs had carved straight through them on their opening possession to take a 7-0 lead. All that talk about how a Bama win might turn the CFP upside down appeared moot.

The Tide's win probability topped 40% for good when Roydell Williams converted a fourth-and-1 rush to the Georgia 18 early in the second quarter, then sneaked above 50% on the next play, a 28-yard Milroe touchdown pass to Jam Miller that gave Bama a 10-7 lead.

It topped 50% for good when Dallas Turner sacked Georgia's Carson Beck to force a punt with five minutes left in the first half. After gaining 83 yards on their first eight snaps, the Bulldogs had gained only 53 in the 18 plays since.

It topped 60% for good when Milroe threw to Amari Niblack for 17 yards on a third-and-21 on the ensuing drive, then found Isaiah Bond for 22 more yards on fourth down. Two plays later, Milroe and Burton connected for a 15-yard touchdown to make it 17-7 Bama at the half.

It topped 70% for good early in the fourth quarter. Beck had just scored on a 1-yard plunge to cut Bama's lead to 20-17, but Milroe completed a 21-yard pass to Bond to get the Tide out near midfield. It topped 80% for good four plays later, when Miller rushed for 4 yards to set up a third-and-short at the Georgia 25. Miller converted the third down, then Williams plowed in from the 1 to make it 27-17 with less than six minutes left.

It topped 90% for good when, after Kendall Milton's touchdown made it 27-24 with three minutes left, Milroe raced 30 yards on the first play of Bama's ensuing drive. Then he moved the chains once more with a 9-yard run on second down. Win probability: 100%.

Milroe's full-game stats were the opposite of eye-popping. Including sacks as passing yardage (as we should always do in football), he threw for 154 net yards and rushed for 67. Not exactly the Heisman-level explosion that Bryce Young generated two years ago (421 passing yards, 40 rushing yards, four combined TDs) in Georgia's last loss.

Alabama gained just 306 yards on the day, fewer than UAB and six other teams did against the Dawgs. But the Bama defense -- Saban's best since 2018 -- held Georgia to season lows in both yards and yards per play, and virtually every good play Milroe made was a massively important one. He made every completion and every big run count. If this wasn't Michael Penix Jr.-Washington levels of clutchitude, it was awfully close.

You don't want to find yourself in a close game with Washington

This is why you play the games.

Heading into Friday night's much-anticipated, win-and-you're-in Pac-12 championship game between Oregon and Washington, I saw quite a few people surprised that Oregon, which had lost to the Huskies less than two months earlier, was favored by nearly double digits. Granted, SP+ was a little less bullish on the Ducks than the sportsbooks but still projected them as an 8.4-point favorite, and for a pretty clear reason: Only one of the two teams had looked like a contender since the first matchup, and it wasn't Washington.

Against six common Pac-12 opponents (Arizona State, Cal, Oregon State, Stanford, USC, Utah and Washington State), Oregon had won by an average of 27.4 points; Washington beat those same teams by an average of 9.4. That's a massive difference. The Huskies' offense had slowly lost traction, and while the defense had played well over the past couple of weeks, it still lagged behind what Oregon's defense had been doing.

Oregon was the favorite for a clear reason. Then the game kicked off, and Washington looked like by far the better team. The Huskies scored on four of their first five possessions while Oregon scored just once in four. Total yards over the first 28:21 of the first half: Washington 248, Oregon 58. Absolute domination. The Ducks were lucky to be down just 20-3.

Fifteen minutes later, Oregon was ahead. Three touchdowns, paired with a Washington turnover and turnover on downs, flipped the game on its head. The Ducks took a 24-20 lead into the fourth quarter ... when the Huskies flipped everything back. Desperately needing a score in the fourth quarter? That's when Washington relaxes! The Huskies scored, forced a punt, then scored again on a 12-play, more-than-six-minute drive to all but put the game away. Oregon scored again late, but Washington recovered an onside kick, moved the chains twice (thanks primarily to hardworking back Dillon Johnson) and kneeled out a 34-31 win. It was the Huskies' seventh one-score win of the season without a defeat.

Over the past 15 seasons, only five teams from power conferences have won at least seven one-score games. Of the previous four, two of them -- 2010 Auburn and 2016 Clemson -- went on to win the national title. (The others were 2011 Kansas State and 2014 Florida State.) Playing close-game roulette eventually catches up to you, but there's some degree of precedent for the idea that teams can at least let it ride through the end of the season.

Washington knows how to relax and play its best ball in the biggest moments. (The Huskies also know how to beat Quinn Ewers and Texas, their CFP semifinal/Sugar Bowl opponent, in a close game; they did so in last year's Alamo Bowl, after all.) Texas has improved significantly in this regard -- after going a combined 4-10 in one-score finishes in 2021 and 2022, the Horns are 3-1 this season -- but it's going up against the close-game masters now. The longer the Sugar Bowl stays close on Jan. 1, the more it favors the team in purple and gold.

A new day in Austin

Lost somewhat in the hubbub of Alabama's playoff selection was the fact that Texas seemingly got in rather easily. Ranked seventh heading into championship weekend, the Longhorns blew out an outclassed Oklahoma State team and, buttressed by its win over the Tide (and the committee's mostly religious adherence to head-to-head results), rode the wave of Bama's SEC championship game upset all the way to No. 3 in the final rankings.

From 2014 to 2022, no team ranked lower than sixth in the penultimate CFP rankings had ever made it into the final four. In 2023, two did it. And in the Horns' case, at least, it felt completely deserved. They passed every test they've failed for years.