While most of the controversy surrounding the College Football Playoff has centered around Florida State’s exclusion, one Georgia politician is using the opportunity to try to curry favor with his constituency.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, Georgia State Senator Colton Moore called for the Bulldogs to be included in the College Football Playoff.
“Your mandate is to send the four best teams in the country to the Playoff, and instead you have created a political mess with a decision based in bias to weaker conferences and teams who want nothing to do playing the Georgia Bulldogs,” Moore wrote in a letter addressed to the College Football Playoff selection committee. “In light of the CFP expansion in the 2024 season and as a remedy to avoid massive liabilities, People of Georgia request you allow The Orange Bowl to be activated as a College Football Playoff game and therefore delay the National Championship by one week or otherwise make accommodations.”
It’s unclear exactly how including the Orange Bowl — in which Georgia will face Florida State — in the Playoff would actually work, but it’s probably not worth delving too deep into something that’s never going to happen. Ultimately, this is the system that the conferences — including the SEC and ACC — agreed to, and there’s nothing special enough about the circumstances to think an immediate injunction is warranted.
Besides, while Florida politicians have pulled similar publicity stunts to pander to Seminoles fans, at least Florida State has a legitimate gripe as an undefeated Power Five champion. On that front, Florida senator Rick Scott, one of those politicians, posted the response he received from CFP executive director Bill Hancock Friday:
https://twitter.com/senrickscott/status/1735749152728891629
Unlike Florida State, the sixth-ranked Bulldogs are neither undefeated nor a conference champion. Even if one could still make the case that they are one of the four best teams in college football this season, the path to getting there seems insurmountable at the moment.
It’s hard to imagine that politicians wasting their time with arguments that belong on a college football message board actually moves the needle for them in any significant way. Especially so when it comes to a program that doesn’t have any place in this year’s debate regarding who got snubbed from the field.