Bruce Feldman makes case for unbeaten Florida State to reach playoff

Conference championship weekend always brings the excitement with only a select few of the nation’s top teams competing to be crowned champions. But this season it seems like the conference championship games have higher College Football Playoff stakes than ever before.

Seven of the eight top-ranked teams are competing this weekend, with many trying to determine how the College Football Playoff committee would or should rank them in the final CFP rankings depending on the outcomes of their matchups.

One of the biggest talking points has been about Florida State, and if capping off their undefeated season with a conference championship win over Louisville on Saturday should secure them a spot in the College Football Playoff despite losing their star quarterback Jordan Travis for the remainder of the season in Week 12. Which is exactly what Rich Eisen asked college football insider Bruce Feldman on his show Wednesday.

“They need to be, deserve,” Feldman said. “13-0 and you whipped the third-best team in the SEC by three or four touchdowns, yeah I think they deserve it.”

The Seminoles’ body of work is hard to deny, running the table this regular season following a dominant 45-24 Week 1 win over LSU. But it’s also not a secret that they aren’t quite the same dominant, undefeated team without Travis who’s thrown for 8,714 yards and 66 touchdowns in his career and rushed for 1,950 yards and 31 scores on the ground.

Backup quarterback Tate Rodemaker led the Seminoles to a pedestrian 24-15 win over rival Florida last weekend and has a chance to lead Florida State to a conference title win on Saturday. But does that justify them making the playoff over a one-loss team like Texas if they win their respective conference title game?

“Honestly those are the two worst Power Five conferences, the Big 12 right now and the ACC. But still, if the backup quarterback leads them to a win over, right now it’s a two-loss Louisville team, I still think you can’t just diminish everything they’ve done because you just think the backup quarterback’s not that good,” Feldman explained.

There seem to be only a few top-raked teams that can secure a spot in the top-four with just a win alone in their conference title game, and unfortunately for Florida State, a healthy Jordan Travis would probably make them one of those teams.

Others will need a win and possibly some help from other teams, which could potentially include the Seminoles. But regardless, it would all start with a win over Louisville this Saturday in a matchup kicking off at 8:00 p.m. ET and airing on ABC.