AT LEAST NOW WE KNOW WHO RUNS COLLEGE FOOTBALL

 Welcome to the wonderful world of big-time college athletics … which have become more professional than the pros, as political as (fill in the blank) and potentially rigged thanks to legalized gambling (even more so than before we became inundated by the betting odds and visions of getting rich quick).

The latest … but surely not the last ... example of sports gone haywire 

was delivered Sunday when unbeaten ACC champion Florida State 

was not included in the four-team NCAA football playoff. The 

committee entrusted with making the selections apparently ignored its 

own guidelines … although we’ll have to take the word of people 

closer to the action for that.

It was decided the 13-0 Seminoles weren’t worthy because their 

Heisman Trophy candidate, quarterback Jordan Travis, was lost for 

the season in Game 11 against North Alabama. Never mind they won 

games without him … including the conference title against 

Louisville. Instead, we were told the committee’s mandate was to 

select the four best teams ,,,. yet they dropped powerhouse Georgia to 

No. 6? 

OK, but then what about Michigan, which played one of the country’s easiest schedules? I still think Ohio State, which lost to the Wolverines in Ann Arbor, was better. That, of course, is an opinion … which is all the committee members had to go on, too … and I’m guessing theirs was polluted by a number of factors that wouldn’t apply here.

(By the way … Florida State football would never be close to the top 

of my fan-favorite list. For several reasons … some of which 

presumably made/make it easy for some observers – like former 

U.Va./NFL standout Chris Canty – to applaud the committee when 

they should be condemning it. Fair is still fair … and clearly didn’t 

come into play in this case.)

Maybe Florida State should sue the NCAA and keep up with JMU, 

which tried then thought better of it. If unbeaten Washington lost to 

Oregon, would the committee have kept the Huskies from the final 

four? Probably ...make that undoubtedly. The wonder of it all is that 

Georgia, which had a 29-game winning streak snapped in the SEC 

final by Alabama, wasn’t named over Texas … regardless of the 

Longhorns knocking off Alabama earlier in the season.

The way they see it in Tuscaloosa, Ala., home of the Crimson Tide, 

and most certainly elsewhere in the Deep South, SEC Commissioner 

Greg Sankey earned every bit of his $3.7 million annual salary. By any 

objective evaluation this was a down year for the conference generally 

considered the runaway best when it comes to blocking and tackling. 

Heck, the ACC, which is to basketball what the SEC is to football, 

claimed a seldom-seen 6-4 face-to-face advantage including 2-0 by 

Florida State..

And there was reasonable concern that, should Alabama beat Georgia, 

the SEC would not have a team in the national finals for the first time. 

With that in mind, Sankey went into his best lobbying

mode, telling anyone who would listen that both Georgia and Alabama 

should get in … regardless of who won.

That he personally was half wrong didn’t keep The Legend of Sankey 

from growing. A Tuscaloosa News columnist wrote the 58-year-old 

Auburn, N.Y., native, in his eighth season running the SEC, 

“peacocked and politicked” the committee into taking Alabama over 

FSU. 

‘

“The college football playoff committee bowed to its master. 

Congratulations, Greg Sankey … you run college football. The 

committee tossed aside the sanctity of the regular season and shut out 

an unbeaten Power 5 conference champion for the first time to make 

room for once-beaten SEC champion Alabama, the bluest of the blue 

bloods … Games always mattered, results always mattered … right up 

until the SEC was at risk with being left out in the cold.” 

Face it: There are power conferences then there are power schools like 

Alabama and Michigan, and all that nonsense about strength-of-

schedule and/or body of work being important no longer applies, does 

it? Who’s kidding whom?

On ESPN’s “Unsportsmanlike” Monday, co-host Canty cast a vote for 

Alabama over Florida State because the Crimson Tide beat Georgia, 

calling it “unquestionably the biggest win of the season.” All or 

nothing on one game? Come on, Chris … they had to teach you better 

than that in C-ville. Thank goodness you’re not a member of the 

selection committee … or are you?

There is no way you can justify leaving out FSU, regardless of how 

the Seminoles played without their best offensive player. They still 

have perhaps the best defense in the country. Had the late, legendary 

Bobby Bowden still been coach, does anybody really believe they 

would have been by-passed?

This reflects poorly on ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, too. He 

obviously doesn’t have much clout … say, like one of his 

predecessors, Gene Corrigan, who – it says here – never would have 

let it happen. 

So Phillips said he was outraged by the committee’s decision. “Florida 

State doesn’t deserve this. College football doesn’t deserve this,” he 

was quoted as saying.

To which the former Northwestern athletic director was quickly 

reminded the ACC was unwavering in its opposition to enlarging the 

field a few years ago and thereby blocked expansion for a while. It 

now goes into effect next year with a 12-team lineup.

Just asking but … what if Phillips and the ACC had recognized adding 

teams was inevitable because there would be a lot of money to be 

made from television, and isn’t that what drives the games people play 

these days? Chances are expansion would have been implemented as 

early as this season … and Florida State wouldn’t have been left out.

I know, I know … this is no laughing matter. Nevertheless, it is 

amusing to think Boo Corrigan, North Carolina State AD and front 

man for the FCS playoff committee, is the son of the late Gene ... 

former ACC commish, Notre Dame and U.Va., athletic director who 

must be (cliché alert) rolling over in his grave at the thought of what 

college athletics has become.

FINALLY … Liberty vs. Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl looks like a 

mismatch, given the 11-2 Ducks’ only losses were both by three points 

to Washington, our choice to win it all … Oregon is a 13 1/2-point 

favorite on the early line over the 13-0 Flames who had the weakest 

schedule in the FBS ... Then again, stranger things have happened … 

and Liberty does have a QB (Kaidon Salter) who compares favorably 

to Huskies Heisman hopeful Michael Penix Jr.

James Madison (11-1) is an early seven-point choice against the Air 

Force Academy (8-4, fourth in Mountain West Conference) in the 

Armed Forces Bowl … which wouldn’t get a second look here if it 

wasn’t for the upstart, chips-on-the-shoulder Dukes of Harrisonburg 

… Frankly, a JMU-Liberty game for best-in-state bragging rights 

would have been more attractive – here, there, everywhere … even for 

TV.

Until next time ...