Florida State should boycott the Orange Bowl

If they’re going to shut you out, then don’t show up.

After winning every game on their schedule, the Florida State Seminoles have been left out in the cold. The undefeated champions from the Atlantic Coast Conference were bumped from No. 4 to No. 5, making history as the first champs from a Power Five conference without a blemish on their resume to not make the College Football Playoff.

They were supposed to be playing No. 1 Michigan in the Rose Bowl. They’re now scheduled to play No. 6 Georgia in the Capital One Orange Bowl. Florida State didn’t just get robbed, they had the rug pulled from under them — and we all saw it coming.

Don’t get mad, FSU. Get even. Boycott the Orange Bowl if you really want to change the game.

“This is a travesty to the sport,” said ESPN’s Booger McFarland. “Because we go out there on the field and we play the game, and regardless of whether it looks good at the QB position . . . the name of the game is to win. The fact that this committee could take a Power 5 conference champion that’s undefeated and [leave them out] based on the eye test has me bothered right now.”

Florida State wouldn’t be in this situation if they had depth at quarterback like Ohio State did in 2014. In case you forgot, the Buckeyes lost starting quarterback Braxton Miller in preseason due to an injury. They’d go on to lose backup quarterback J.T. Barrett in the regular-season finale against Michigan. Third-string quarterback Cardale Jones led Ohio State to a 59-0 win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game to prove to the committee that they were good enough despite multiple injuries to the most important position on the field, as they went on to win a national championship as the No. 4 seed.

Florida State’s freshman third-string quarterback, Brock Glen, was 8-for-21 for 55 yards on Saturday in a 16-6 win over Louisville. What occurred in 2014 wasn’t happening in 2023.

The situation proved just how important semantics are. After years of choosing the four most deserving teams instead of selecting the “four best teams” as they claimed, the College Football Playoff Selection Committee waited until the final year of the four-team playoff to finally do what they were supposed to have been doing from the beginning — which left the Seminoles on the outside looking in.

“A lot of people will have big issues with this,” said ESPN’s Greg McElroy. “They’ll ask, ‘why do we play the games?’ But the committee actually did the thing that they’ve talked about for the last 10 years. They took a step back, they acknowledged injury and they put in the four best teams. And that is not an easy thing to do, so I want to tip my hat to the committee.”

Florida State isn’t just taking “issue” with this, they’re pissed. And so are a lot of other people.

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips called the move “unfathomable.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis posted on social media about how the committee had “ignored” FSU’s results. FSU Athletic Director Michael Alford called it “unforgivable.” Head Coach Mike Norvell said he was “disgusted and infuriated.” Injured starting quarterback Jordan Travis said he wished his “leg broke earlier in the season so y’all could see this team is much more than the quarterback.” Lawmakers in the state are even discussing legislation and the creation of a bill in protest.

But, it won’t matter. After we all saw the way that FSU played without a capable quarterback, it was a wrap. Especially when it was reported that some oddsmakers would have had Michigan as a 13-point favorite over FSU. The Wolverines are only a 2-point favorite over the Crimson Tide.

“The fact that Rodemaker (FSU’s second-string QB) was not there, we did have limited access visually on the job that he did, but again, looking at the top four, we had to decide if Florida State was better than Michigan, Washington, Texas, or Alabama, and in the eyes of the committee, Florida State was fifth,” said CFP Chair Boo Corrigan when asked by The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach about what changed.

We all know that life, and college football, isn’t fair. But what we don’t all want to accept is that sometimes your best isn’t good enough. That’s what happened here with Florida State. However, there’s also another life lesson this situation reminds us of, which is that people will only do to you what you allow them to. So since college football screwed Florida State, FSU should screw college football right back by not showing up in Miami for the Orange Bowl. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they can make you feel better.