Paul Finebaum: Committee pushed Georgia to No. 6, made it about Alabama-FSU to 'blame Jordan Travis'
Paul Finebaum believes the College Football Playoff committee needed a scapegoat, and they got one in Jordan Travis.
In the final College Football Playoff rankings, Alabama jumped into the Top 4, over the undefeated ACC champions in Florida State, and the team they beat in the SEC title game, who was previously No. 1 in the Georgia Bulldogs.
Evidently, Finebaum believes the committee saw their way out of an Alabama versus Georgia debate by taking the easy way out, and blamed their reasoning for the Crimson Tide in the Playoff on the missing Florida State quarterback. Right or wrong, that’s what the SEC Network analyst is championing.
“Georgia’s better than Florida State. We don’t know really — I don’t know how Georgia went from No. 1 to No. 6. … These people in the committee room, they have to match. I think what they didn’t want was a debate about Georgia. So they just pushed Georgia as far away from No. 1 as they could, after one loss to by the way, the No. 4 team in the country. Then they made it an Alabama-FSU debate, so they could blame it all on Jordan Travis,” Finebaum claimed.
“I’m not saying it’s a great system. I don’t like it. I’ve been here a million times talking about the travesty of the way they do it. But thank goodness we won’t be going through this next year. So the sport is not dead, it’s quite healthy actually.”
Regardless, Finebaum believes the committee gave us the best possibly Playoff on Sunday, and we’re going to get some awesome clashes.
“You really can’t (debate for Florida State) if you’re reasonable,” Finebaum said. “Some of the lines I’ve heard today issued by your colleagues up there at ESPN? They do want to make your head explode. ‘What about the other 99 players on the team?’? Well, what about the other 99 players on Alabama’s team?”
“They just knocked off Georgia. I mean all these things are great but I’m glad this committee didn’t buy it,” said Finebaum. “I didn’t think they would as midnight struck last night because Florida State vs. Louisville was a painful game to watch – as opposed to where I was yesterday watching to heavyweights. It was like going back to the 70s and watching Ali and Frazier. Then the winner of that meets some boxing gym in Queens. It’s absurd.”
Nevertheless, it all stings for Jordan Travis and Florida State. They’ll be looking to prove everyone wrong in their bowl game instead.