Pete Thamel: It would be a 'shame' if undefeated Florida State missed College Football Playoff

Even as an undefeated team at 12-0, there’s some who feel that Florida State won’t, or even shouldn’t, make the College Football Playoff. Pete Thamel isn’t part of that group, though, as he’s advocating for the ‘Noles to be one of the field’s four teams.

Thamel came to the defense of Florida State during the ‘College GameDay Podcast’ on Monday. His stance is that, with their overall resume in consideration, the Seminoles should most definitely be in the playoff if they win the ACC title and finish as an undefeated champion of their conference.

“I want to go on the record now – there’s a lot of Florida State stuff that has popped up. If they are an undefeated conference champion? I think they should be in the playoff,” said Thamel. “I do.”

“They tested themselves in the early season and played a very good LSU team. They beat the brakes off of them. I understand, with (Tate) Rodemaker, that they’re not whole. But it is really hard to go undefeated. I don’t care what league you’re in. I don’t care where you are,” Thamel explained. “If you’re an undefeated, power conference champion with a Top-10 win in the out of conference? I think it would be a shame if they ended up at No. 5 somehow.”

The loss of Jordan Travis does take Florida State down a notch from where they were as a contender. The question about the validity of their conference competition is also a valid enough one to ask.

Still, at the end of the season, 12-0 is still 12-0. No matter what you think about the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Seminoles could only play the teams in front of them and they handled their business with an average margin of victory of 17 points per game in conference play.

They also managed to pick up two wins from teams in the Southeastern Conference. One was a 21-point win over LSU in their season opener. The other was a nine-point win at Florida to close the season last weekend in their Travis-less state.

We all understand that, in the final year of the four-team field, there’s several teams that deserve a spot. Depending on what happens in the conference championships, it’s fair to think anywhere from one to four or so teams will feel outrage that they won’t have a chance to play for a national championship.

However, if Florida State wins in Charlotte on Saturday, Thamel doesn’t know how the Seminoles would be one of those snubs and wouldn’t agree with it if they were.

“I just think that would be wrong,” said Thamel.