A.G. Gancarski
Gov. Ron DeSantis is unhappy with the exclusion of the unbeaten Florida State Seminoles from this year’s four-team College Football Playoffs.
But as he said in Marco Island, he opposes the NCAA’s move next year to expand the post-season tourney to 12 teams, a condition that would have ensured playoff inclusion for the Atlantic Coast Conference champions had a larger field been in place for the 2023 season.
“Now they’re going to go forward and it’s going to be a larger playoff which, you know, I think maybe it’s probably too many teams because there’s a happy medium between having a playoff, which I think we should, to where the regular season doesn’t mean as much anymore,” DeSantis argued.
“I mean, to me it’s like if you win and you’re undefeated, that should mean something. I mean, that should really be significant and they’re telling us that other factors matter more. So that’s just not how I would approach it.”
The Governor also clarified his proposal to include $1 million in his budget proposal in case Florida State wanted to pursue legal action against the College Football Playoffs, cautioning that he believes that “relief” that would move the Seminoles from the No. 5 ranking to No. 4 is improbable.
“I know that the school and the Board of Governors are looking to see if there is anything that can be done. I don’t think there would be anything where they could get relief prior to the tournament, obviously,” DeSantis said.
He then announced the decision to set aside “a million dollars for any litigation expenses that may come as a result of this really, really poor decision by the college football playoffs to exclude an undefeated team who won a big Power 5 conference championship.”
4 comments
Bwj
December 5, 2023 at 11:34 am
But DeSantis won’t set aside money for affordable housing, homeowners insurance, or any other fill in the blank issue that the citizens of this state need help with.
rick whitaker
December 5, 2023 at 7:35 pm
BWJ, desantis is a maga cultist republican, what did you expect. vote for biden if you want what your post spoke of.
Lex
December 6, 2023 at 9:31 am
Ron, don’t spend the million. If they can beat Georgia, FSU still can get half of a national championship. Split decisions in the final poll can result in co-champions. Unfortunately for Georgia, it will not work the other way for them, but Georgia did lose their conference championship and late losses are the hardest to overcome for tie-breakers. My thought has always been to collapse the five power conferences into four power football conferences that would find ways to allow a school to compete in the power conference much like Notre Dame competes in the ACC. I will point out that the ACC did vote not to have the 12 team playoff this year. I will also point out that FSU’s only got two wins against teams still currently ranked, LSU 13 and Louisville 16. FSU’s strength of schedule was not great. While that strength of schedule may be more a reflection of the ACC than FSU’s scheduling, you do not want to create an incentive for rewarding weak schedules because you will have less competitive regular season games as no one will want to play a tough team if wins and losses are the only thing that matters. FSU was the correct team to not have in the playoff because they would have had the lowest Vegas odds which is a pretty good determination of “best team” and if you were to replace FSU for the next closest team with Vegas odds you’d be throwing out undefeated Washington. Otherwise, you are rewarding teams for playing harder schedules and not choosing the best team. Save the money and see if FSU has a miracle in them and they find a way to beat Georgia. If they do, FSU should get a co-national championship.
MH/Duuuval
December 6, 2023 at 10:59 am
Dee has put it in his budget request for the upcoming session. Might be a ploy, for show, knowing the Legislature won’t buy it.
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