Mike Norvell took issue with Florida State being left out of the College Football Playoff selection committee’s final poll, but doesn’t hold the same opinion for Georgia, the nation’s top-ranked team entering conference championship weekend before the Bulldogs lost to Alabama.
Both Florida State and Georgia were playoff-excluded before battling one another in a lopsided Orange Bowl. Norvell was asked this week at ACC Media Days for his reaction on SEC commissioner Greg Sankey’s recent comments that Georgia was deserving of a playoff bid.
“I don’t disagree that Georgia was one of the top four teams if you’re judging off talent and ability but they also earned their loss,” Norvell said Monday in Charlotte, via Noles247. “That was part of the result of what happened on the field. When you look at our team and what it was, we controlled the things we could control, we unfortunately had an injury, but we had a team that responded to it. Everybody can have an opinion of what happened.
“I don’t disagree they were one of the four best teams, but what happened on the field kept them out of the playoff.”
Florida State’s omission from the four-team field generated outrage, given Norvell’s team became the first undefeated power conference champion to miss the playoff. The Seminoles saw many of their starters sit out the Orange Bowl while Georgia — 12-1 overall and undefeated until its SEC Championship Game loss — went into the postseason at full strength.
“That was one of the four best teams, period,” Sankey said of Georgia last week on 1010 XL. “We didn’t stomp our feet, we didn’t, like, fly banners over places. That was one of the four best teams. They lost one game in two years. Bad second half — second quarter, third quarter. And in the future, if they’re 9-3 compared to a 10-2 or 11-1, the standard is not 10-2 or 11-1, it’s the best teams.”
Sankey argued that the strength of teams matters more in the selection process than those squads’ records, and the 2023 postseason saw that idea come to fruition. Alabama, with one loss, earned the fourth and final CFP spot over Florida State in part because the Seminoles were without starting quarterback Jordan Travis and struggled mightily on offense without his talents under center.
“I am disgusted and infuriated with the committee’s decision today to have what was earned on the field taken away because a small group of people decided they knew better than the results of the games,” Norvell said in December after Florida State’s omission. “What is the point of playing games?”
Get the latest football and recruiting scoop on your favorite college team today.
Both the Seminoles and Bulldogs project to again be on the selection committee’s radar deep into the 2024 season. Florida State remains a presence in the ACC’s top tier while Georgia holds the top spot in numerous national preseason rankings.
Carter Bahns contributed to this report.
