Goodman: Iâm happy for Alabama, but FSU was robbed

The best story of Nick Saban’s career just got better.

Alabama is going to the Rose Bowl semifinals of the College Football Playoff and it deserves to be there after a stunning transformation from a team that was destroyed by Texas in September to one that body slammed then-No.1 Georgia in the SEC championship game.

Here’s the College Football Playoff field. No.4 Alabama (12-1) will play No.1 Michigan (13-0) in the Rose on Jan.1, and No.3 Texas (12-1) takes on No.2 Washington (13-0) in the Sugar Bowl. The winners on New Year’s Day then meet up on Jan.8 at Houston’s NRG Stadium. If the championship game ends up being Alabama vs. Texas, then be prepared for one of the most-hyped games in college football history.

That’s the game that everyone wants to see, and by everyone I mean the people who are employed by ESPN.

For the Crimson Tide, this College Football Playoff will be a redemption tour and a full circle. Alabama missed the playoff last season, but now it’s going back to the place where the dynasty all began for Saban. Beginning with 2010 BCS national championship victory against Texas in the Rose Bowl, Saban’s Alabama has forced college football to reshape itself over and over again to contend with the Crimson Tide’s uncontainable dominance.

CASAGRANDE: The CFP got it right, Alabama is better

The four-team playoff, the transfer portal and next season’s 12-team playoff were all counterbalances to Alabama’s Saban-era wrecking ball. Add the new wrinkle of NIL collectives to the mix, and there was the beginning of what felt like parity for a sport rooted in its unbalanced ways. Going into conference championship week, more teams than ever had legitimate shots at making the final four-team playoff field.

Chaos then ensued and things got messy.

Before we get into the nasty business of Florida State dropping from No.4 to No.5 in the rankings despite a brilliant win against Louisville in the ACC title game, an even bigger disgrace by the College Football Playoff committee probably first needs to be addressed.

I’m talking about the no-good, dirty-rotten-scoundrel Michigan Wolverines, God bless’m.

Michigan, which won the Big Ten title game on Saturday against Iowa, is lucky to be included in the College Football Playoff at all after the sign-stealing scandal that led to coach Jim Harbaugh being suspended for three games. Michigan shouldn’t even be allowed to compete for a national championship this season, but the morally bereft CFP selection committee chose to turn its head to all that and ignore the fact that the Wolverines gained advantages in games this season by cheating.

So, not only did the CFP tell everyone that it’s OK to cheat by selecting Michigan, the selection committee also ranked Michigan No.1 because of its impressive defense. That leads me to the committee’s laughably corrupt omission of Florida State. Florida State’s defense was better than Michigan’s this season, and FSU didn’t even know what plays were coming.

Don’t take my word for it, though. Just ask the guy who’s probably going to win the Heisman Trophy. He’ll tell you all about it.

LSU’s Jayden Daniels had a great season. Had better numbers than Joe Burrow, or at least that’s what people are saying. Daniels looked pretty ordinary against the Noles, though. In LSU’s 45-24 blowout loss to FSU to begin the season, Daniels was lucky to get out of Orlando without an injury. Daniels had one passing touchdown to one interception in the game and was sacked four times. The Tigers only scored seven points in the second half and would have lost the game no matter who was at quarterback for FSU.

Any argument about FSU’s quarterback situation being a sound reason to keep the Noles out of the playoff is just shameless gaslighting. The grand finale of the four-team playoff stayed true to the one and only thing it consistently delivered for the past decade, and that’s poison for the integrity of college football. As for the choices made by the College Football Playoff selection committee, let me just state the obvious.

Dadgummit, FSU was robbed.

Who were the four best teams at the end of the season? It’s truly impossible to know. We can guess just like the College Football Playoff selection committee, but there is no doubt that Florida State has every right to be furious about being left out.

Defense wins championships, right? That’s the expression preached by every coach in college football. Well, if that’s the case then undefeated Florida State, with arguably the best defense in the country, should be in the College Football Playoff.

I’m not sure how many points any of the teams in the playoff could score against FSU, but it wouldn’t be many. Let’s be real. FSU was denied because defense isn’t what delivers television ratings. Any argument by someone employed by ESPN is null and void, so don’t even try me.

Alabama looks like the best team in the country after defeating former No.1 Georgia 27-24 in the SEC championship game, but if you want to read something that services an SEC bias and attempts to curry favor with the league and its fans, then this column isn’t that. Don’t get me wrong. I am happy that Alabama is in the playoff, but I also don’t think it’s fair that Florida State was left out after going undefeated and, amazingly, winning its conference championship with a third-string quarterback.

Of everything we’ve seen, that’s probably the biggest flex of all this entire season.

FSU shouldn’t be in the playoff over Alabama or Texas, though. FSU should be in over Washington.

No one can claim without a doubt that Washington is better than Florida State. I’d pick FSU against the Huskies right now, but the Noles would have had an entire month to prepare for a playoff game. Anyone who says FSU couldn’t put together a game plan over the course of a month to knock off Washington, Michigan, Alabama or Texas is just living on Sesame Street with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.

Any argument about the “best teams” is pure drivel. I can easily make the case that FSU, winning a championship with a third-string quarterback, is the “best team.” But, again, it’s not about that because if it were then the committee wouldn’t have put TCU in the playoff last season at No.2.

Were the Horned Frogs unquestionably better than Alabama, which was left out with two losses? No, of course not. I do know for a fact, however, that ESPN took a hit in the ratings.

It’s not so much that the committee got it wrong this time. It’s that the College Football Playoff is a failed enterprise that leaves me questioning what the people charged with leading the sport of college football actually value.

It’s not fairness, and that’s for dadgum sure.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama”, a book about togetherness, wild times and rum.