Georgia and Florida State have three people to blame for missing CFP in 2023

Although Georgia did not deserve to be one of the four teams into the College Football Playoff after losing the SEC Championship to Alabama in Atlanta by a field goal, Florida State has the strongest argument to date of any team who deserved to get in and got left out. It took 10 years, but we unfortunately saw the four-team playoff format become completely unraveled in its final rendition.

The great debate over the last 10 years in this format was best teams vs. most deserving. It usually sorts itself out because at least one Power Five conference will effectively eliminate itself from consideration well before the final rankings. Unfortunately, we had five Power Five champions with a combined three losses on the year, and one of the undefeated teams got left out entirely. How sad...

We saw several unprecedented things happen in the final four-team playoff's revealing. We had an undefeated Power Five champion be left out (Florida State), a No. 8 seed in the penultimate rankings make the four-team field (No. 4 Alabama) and a No. 1 seed in the penultimate rankings get left out completely (No. 6 Georgia). This all could have been solved with playoff expansion for this season.

In Ross Dellenger's feature for Yahoo Sports about the lingering effects of the ill-fated Alliance between ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, former Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren and Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff, he painted a beautiful picture of how our Power Five conference commissioners let us down in the end. Yes, that might even include SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.

Let's discuss The Alliance's greatest, yet unintended impact on the sports of major college football.

Georgia, Florida State can blame The Alliance for missing out on the CFP

For those who don't remember The Alliance's origins or what it was about, let me refresh your memory. When the SEC jumpstarted the latest waves of conference realignment by poaching Oklahoma and Texas out of the Big 12, the ACC, the Big Ten and the Pac-12 created an alliance built on nothing but looking each other in the eyes and giving each other firm virtual handshakes. Jesus...

It was supposed to be all about keeping each conference's integrity alive, as well as a wink-wink, nod-nod agreement to schedule games with each other's leagues and look out for each other's best interests. Well, Warren had different interests than Phillips and Kliavkoff. His former league poached USC and UCLA out of the Pac-12, thus violating the holy sanctity of the most sacred college Alliance.

By doing this and really delaying potential College Football Playoff expansion, we are left where we are at. The Pac-12 is no more. Warren now works for the Chicago Bears. Phillips has added Cal, Stanford and SMU to help keep his league alive. Honestly, it was his league that prevented the 12-team format with automatic qualifiers. He wanted an eight-team playoff with five AQ spots. Oof...

Overall, we would have had different debates today. Florida State and Georgia would be No. 5 and No. 6, hosting lesser teams at home in their first-round games. We missed out on potentially having postseason games in amazing college towns like Athens and Tallahassee. We would be debating about seeding and the No. 10 and No. 11 teams getting in with the No. 12 going to the Group of Five.

Florida State deserved to be in the playoff. Georgia was good enough to get in, but here we sadly are.