Michigan’s Reaction To Alabama Earning Playoff Spot Says It All

There will be overwhelming debate this week about whether or not the College Football Playoff committee correctly picked the four teams for this season’s tournament.

They did, and that was confirmed by a quick scene in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Sunday morning.

The College Football Playoff semifinalists were revealed one day after conference championship Saturday. No. 1-seeded Michigan was the first team unveiled on ESPN’s selection show, followed by Washington and Texas, respectively.

It set the scene for the revelation all college football fans were eager to learn: Which team will enter the tournament as the fourth seed? It proved to be Alabama, which entered the conversation by beating previously undefeated Georgia in the SEC Championship Game.

TheWolverine.com’s Clayton Safie shared a video of Michigan learning it will go up against Nick Saban’s team in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1. The unveiling was met with a very tepid reaction from the Wolverines, who seemingly were hoping to draw Florida State for the New Year’s Day showdown. The Seminoles arguably were this season’s biggest snub after capping off an undefeated season with an ACC championship.

But it was the committee’s job to pick the best four teams, not the most deserving. Florida State did everything it could to earn a CFP spot this season, but it’s tough to argue it still is one of the top four teams in the country. The Seminoles just aren’t the same team without star quarterback Jordan Travis, which was pretty apparent across mediocre-at-best performances the last two weeks.

Let’s also call a spade a spade. Long gone are the days of NCAA football being viewed as a champion of amateur athletics. It’s a highly lucrative business where many deep-pocketed entities stand to gain. The powers that be would much rather see a juggernaut brand like Alabama with a legendary coach, highly entertaining quarterback and great supporting cast than a good-but-not-great team without much buzz. No offense to Tate Rhodemaker and Brock Glenn, but no one outside of Tallahassee is itching to see either of those signal-callers on the biggest college football weekend of the year.

The CFP committee prioritized deserving over best in years past and the sport was burned by it to the tune of boring, blowout games. The fact of the matter is, there isn’t a college football fan in the nation who could tell you with a straight face that the Seminoles would have given the Wolverines a tougher fight than the Crimson Tide.

Michigan certainly understands that reality, which is why the energy was sucked out of the room when Jim Harbaugh and company learned they will have to go through Alabama to reach the title game.