Florida State, the university part, made a public spectacle of its decision to file suit to try to get out of the ACC, citing among its reasons that the conference’s lack of cachet was why the 13-0 football team was left out of the playoff.
Cough, cough, 63-3.
“It was hard choices for a lot of the young men that were on our team. We were hurt,” FSU coach Mike Norvell said, excusing away why 29 (!) of his guys opted out of playing in the game, because it was just the Orange Bowl, and a game against the two-time defending national champs, no big deal.
“When you do the things that our guys did throughout the year, and the way that they responded, the way they fought, the way that they just pulled together, it hurt when we were not selected,” Norvell said.
Yes, it was a screwjob – the CFP committee had Florida State ranked fourth in the final two regular-season CFP rankings, notable because those were made public after QB Jordan Travis went down to a season-ending injury, and then dropped the ‘Noles to fifth, behind one-loss Texas and one-loss Alabama, citing the absence of Travis, when it came time to seed the playoff field.
There are other factors at play with why guys playing what amounts to an exhibition game would decide, nah, not going to risk serious injury for nothing, though, Georgia didn’t have that problem, did it?
And Georgia had as good a case as FSU to be torqued at not being in the playoff this year. UGA was #1 all year long, and lost one game, its final game before the playoff was set, by three points.
Kirby Smart has a culture in place where his guys wanted to finish things out.
On the other sideline, FSU’s culture is evident in how it’s suing the ACC to try to get out of a contract that the school signed back in 2016, and is now raising holy hell about.
The message that lawsuit sends from the institutional level is, we don’t get our way, we don’t want to play.
Can’t blame the kids for saying, well, the guys in suits and ties who actually get paid to do this don’t want to be a part of this game, why should we?
You notice, though, that despite FSU being down 29 (!) scholarship guys, the school didn’t just up and say, hey, you know, in the interest of player safety and the spirit of competition, let’s just call the game off.
Because to do that would have cost the school money.
And that’s what the last few weeks of hemming and hawing from the FSU blue bloods has been all about.
Florida State, without an invite from another conference, without a clear exit strategy, other than handing the ACC half a billion dollars, thinks it can do better – no, not just that it can do better, but it deserves better.
To borrow from Bill Parcells, you are what your record says you are.
FSU just lost a bowl game by 60 points.
The ACC should countersue Florida State for the embarrassment that it put us all through.
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Chris Graham
