Poll results: College Football Edition
The Alabama Crimson Tide has a slight edge over the Michigan Wolverines as favorites to win the College Football Championship, according to the latest weekly HBSDealer poll question.
Here are the results.
(Click on the chart to add your vote.)
The National Championship Game will be played Jan. 8 in Houston. That gives plenty of time for sports fans to discuss the selection committee's decision to leave undefeated Florida State out of the four-team playoffs.
(The ommission was even noted during the recent Builders FirstSource Investors Day conference by BFS CEO David Rush.)
Readers weighed in with their thoughts:
John Turner writes:
"In my humble opinion, the NCAA is not about student athletes anymore, it’s all about $$$$. …One question: If Florida State beats Georgia and stays undefeated while Michigan & Washington both lose making everyone else one-defeated, should FSU be the National Champs? I say YES!
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John Smith responds to the connection between an injury to the season-ending injury to undefeated Florida State's starting quarterback and Florida State's failure to make the final four:
The reaction to what has always been an arbitrary decision is unpopular in may ways by many different groups, but in my mind whether Florida should be in or out is secondary… college football missed the opportunity to teach an important life and leadership skill (which they regularly fail to do by the way)… they do not send individual players to the championships, and individual players do not win national titles in any TEAM sport. Teams win them, players that are focused, well practiced , build a plan, can take advantage of opportunities, AND OVERCOME OBSTACLES (like losing a key player), react to those issues and make the changes that are needed, and are well lead, and even here losing a leader does not mean a team is doomed to failure. You do not go undefeated in any sport because you are not capable of overcoming obstacles, you plan for them before they occur.
In the business world we call the enterprise risk management. Some risks are very obvious, losing a key player is one of them. In my mind by making this decision based on the availability of one player they send a very bad message to players, that it really is about the star… and that in life and the world is simply not true. In life and business its always about the TEAM.
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George Judd writes:
I believe the committee got it right …. As a Georgia booster and ticket holder, I think Georgia, Ohio State, and Oregon were all better than Florida State at season end. It stinks (however) that you could go undefeated and win a conference, (even though it is a weak conference) and not get in.
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Gloria Crittenden, who has the abbreviation "fsu" in her email address, offered this comment:
"Florida State should replace Alabama (in the final four). CFP committee is in collusion with SEC, ESPN and Disney."