Projected Final College Football Playoff bracket, Top 25 rankings: Alabama upends UGA, Florida State perseveres
Projected Final College Football Playoff rankings: No. 6-5
6. Georgia Bulldogs
The Georgia Bulldogs’ 29-game winning streak has come to a close after a loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship Game. And with that, Kirby Smart’s bid to lead his team to a 3-peat of national championships might be dead as well.
Georgia suffered from a number of self-inflicted wounds throughout this game, not to mention some dubious officiating from the crew in Atlanta as well. But Smart has never been one for those types of excuses and the fact of the matter is that the Dawgs didn’t get the job done.
There will be arguments that Georgia still deserves to be in the Playoff and, objectively, if we’re looking at simply the four best teams, I’d agree. But in a world where we’re talking about most deserving teams, there are too many other deserving teams for the Dawgs to ultimately make it into the final Top 4 and the College Football Playoff bracket this year.
5. Florida State Seminoles
This isn’t fair. I fully believe that Florida State deserves on its merit from the 2023 season, wherein the Seminoles went a perfect 12-0 in the regular season, battled through the Jordan Travis injury and then Tate Rodemaker’s injury to get past Louisville and win the ACC with a perfect record, to be in the College Football Playoff.
Having said that, it feels like they are set up to get royally screwed in the CFP field. Boo Corrigan has talked about the “four best teams” for a while now. With the QB injuries, FSU feels like it’s ripe to get jumped by both Alabama and Texas and left out of the Playoff field because the Committee will deem that those two teams are better. That’s probably not wrong, but the games have to matter, right?
Leaving FSU out of the Playoff is another reason why many are looking forward to the 12-team format coming next year. What’s worse for the Noles is that being left out of the Top 4 likely sets them up for an Orange Bowl date with a pissed-off Georgia team.