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It’s pretty hard to blame Florida State and its fans for being outraged after being left out of the College Football Playoff, and while it doesn’t seem like the program has any options to right the perceived wrong, the governor of the state of Florida has promised to set aside some money in the budget to help FSU go to war with the people responsible.
At this point, anyone who’s been keeping track of the fallout after the Florida State Seminoles were denied a spot in the CFP is probably familiar with the arguments for and against that decision.
The committee that opted to leave them out of the quartet of teams comprised of Michigan, Washington, Texas, and Alabama appeared to think the absence of Jordan Travis was enough to keep them out of the playoff—a development that understandably irked plenty of people who couldn’t fathom how you could ignore the fact they had an undefeated record in a Power 5 conference.
That decision was arguably a reflection of the perceived strength of the ACC as a whole (although it’s worth noting teams in the conference—including Florida State—had a winning record against the SEC this season), and there’s little doubt the Seminoles will use the snub to justified the premature exit that’s been teased for the past few months.
At this point, what’s done is done, as FSU won’t be playing in the College Football Playoff even though you could argue they deserved the chance to do exactly that.
While it doesn’t seem like the program has any legal recourse at first glance, that apparently hasn’t stopped Ron Desantis from encouraging the state to go after the CFP committee, as the Tampa Bay Times reports the governor plans to earmark a seven-figure sum in the upcoming state budget to wage that particular war, saying:
“It’s unfortunate that we have to even do that, but we are going to put aside $1 million and let the chips fall where they may on that.”
I’m not even going to pretend like I know what legal argument there is to be made here, so while it seems slightly foolish to promise to devote that much money to what would likely amount to a moral victory at most, it’ll be interesting to see how things play out if Florida follows through on its threat.