A Win is a Win…Except When it isn’t

Today is Championship Saturday in the college football world, and for the four teams currently sit atop the rankings, it means win and you’re in. Or at least that should be the case, but throughout the past few weeks the selection committee seems to have found an exception to that rule, Florida State.
In the top four spots in the college football rankings we have Alabama, Oregon, TCU and Florida State, in that order. Oregon and TCU both lost to teams that were ranked in the top ten by the end of the season, yet Alabama lost to an Ole Miss squad that dropped out of the top 25 rankings completely. Then there is Florida State, whose record is unblemished, yet they’ve found themselves drop to number four in the past few weeks.
Whether you love them, hate them, or are simply indifferent towards them, you can’t deny that Florida State has a good football team. It’s hard to look at Jimbo Fisher and the Seminoles and ignore the fact that they are in the midst of a 28 game win streak that dates back to 2012, but somehow the selection committee seems to be doing just that.
Some people are going to argue that Florida State’s schedule was a little on the weak side, and in all honesty it could have been stronger, but it’s not like it was a walk in the park either. There are also those people who are going to argue that if you combine their weak schedule, and add it to the fact that they have just barely been able to eek out a couple wins, then they deserve to drop. Then there are those who still believe that a win is a win, and no matter how it happens, it only matters that it does indeed happen.
I find myself agreeing more and more with the last group. Yeah, Florida State makes it easy to hate on them and root against them, but that isn’t the point here. The point is that Florida State keeps finding ways to win, yet they keep dropping in the polls.
Every year around playoff time in the NFL, some commentator will talk about how a team is unproven because they really haven’t had one of those games where their back is up against the wall and they have to find a way to win. Then the commentator will go on to say that the best teams always find ways to win. Well, Florida State’s back has been to the wall more times than it should have been throughout the season, but the fact of the matter is that they came out on top in all of those match ups.
Now, the more cynical side of me would say that this is all one big financial ploy by the NCAA and the selection committee. If Florida State stays at four, and Bama stays at one, then the NCAA has the guaranteed matchup of the Seminoles and the Tide, which means a boatload of would pack up and go to Alabama to watch the two giants clash. That’s just my pet theory though.
Any who, the very first college football playoff picture will finally be decided once and for all today as the leaders of each conference duke it out, which means that Florida State will be playing a tough Georgia Tech squad. A win by Florida State would be tough to ignore, especially against an opponent just barely out of the top ten, but the selection committee has proven that wins aren’t most important aspect.