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College Football

Did the best team really win the national championship? Georgia, FSU have an argument

Brett Friedlander

By Brett Friedlander

Published:


Mark Keenum barely waited for the maize and blue confetti to finish wafting to the ground at NRG Stadium following Michigan’s win against Washington on Monday to proclaim that his College Football Playoff selection committee “got it right.”

“We had the best 4 teams in the Playoff,” the Mississippi State president told reporters.

But as chairman of the Playoff board of managers, it would have been the biggest upset of the postseason had he said anything different.

What Keenum meant is that he, the committee and everyone else involved with the administration of college football’s 4-team invitational tournament – including the television network under contract to broadcast it – got exactly what they wanted.

They got the massive Bama-driven ratings bump they craved in the semifinals, a Good vs. Evil storyline to hype leading into the championship final and a competitive enough game between the Wolverines and Huskies to keep viewers from flipping channels to see Howie steal the Ramadhani Brothers from Heidi Klum in the America’s Got Talent Fantasy League.

But did they really get the best 4 teams in the Playoff?

It’s an entirely subjective question and will never truly be answered. For that reason, there will always be an asterisk attached to Michigan’s championship. And not because of that silly sign-stealing drama that put Jim Harbaugh in line to become the next manager of the Houston Astros.

This hasn’t exactly been a vintage season for college football.

It’s been fun. And thanks to Boo Corrigan and his Playoff committee, controversial. There was a lot more parity than we’re used to seeing. All across the country. But there weren’t any super teams. Even the SEC was down.

Now that we have the benefit of hindsight, a reasonable argument can be made that Georgia and a healthy Florida State could legitimately have beaten the Wolverines and won the title.

Yes, you read that right.

Florida State.

Not the group of backups, redshirts and walk-ons that were served up as red meat for a bunch of angry Bulldogs to devour at the Orange Bowl. But the Seminoles team that went 13-0 – including a pair of victories after quarterback Jordan Travis was lost to an injury – on the way to the ACC championship.

Before you fire off those indignant emails and tweets questioning my sanity or cognitive capacity, hear me out.

Michigan’s 2 Playoff victories were both achieved using the same formula: Lean heavily on the nation’s best defense, wear down the opposition with an elite ground attack powered by a physical offensive line and don’t ask too much from a game-managing quarterback.

If that sounds familiar, it should. It’s an identical game plan to the one FSU used to beat Florida in its regular-season finale with backup Tate Rodemaker at the controls and again a week later against Louisville in the ACC Championship Game with 3rd-stringer Brock Glenn under center.

Granted, a Rose Bowl matchup featuring a Travis-less Seminoles squad would have created much less of a buzz than did the actual game between the Wolverines and Alabama. But it’s not as if either team looked like a world-beater in Michigan’s eventual overtime victory.

With Jared Verse, Fabien Lovett, DJ Lundy, Renardo Green and the rest of its Orange Bowl opt-outs in the lineup, FSU’s ACC-best defense would have been fully capable of matching the Wolverines tackle-for-tackle and turning the game into a winnable low-scoring defensive struggle.

Even with Rodemaker at quarterback.

As for a potential title game showdown with Washington, it would have looked a lot like the game that played out in Houston on Monday night.

Pressure Michael Pennix Jr. into making rushed throws and interceptions. Hand the ball off to your star back as much as possible against a Huskies run defense that ranked 58th in the country and just don’t turn the ball over.

Michigan made life miserable for Penix while holding him to 100 fewer passing yards than his season average and intercepting him twice. Blake Corum rushed for 134 of his team’s 300 yards on the ground, to go along with 2 touchdowns. And JJ McCarthy played a clean game while needing to throw the ball only 18 times, completing 10 for just 140 yards.

It wouldn’t have been an unreasonable ask for FSU’s defense, the running back tandem of Trey Benson and Lawrance Toafili, and Rodemaker to produce a similar effort.

Maybe the final margin might have been closer than Monday’s 34-13 score. But contrary to the popular narrative being sold by ESPN and the doomsday predictions of the Vegas oddsmakers, there’s a realistic chance the confetti being shot out of those postgame cannons would have been garnet and gold.

Even in that scenario, it would still be an entirely subjective statement to say that the committee “got it right.” At least Keenum would have been more accurate in his conclusion that “we had the best 4 teams in the Playoff.”

Brett Friedlander

Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.

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