Florida State 'still thinking about' CFP snub

Florida State head coach Mike Norvell and other Seminoles admitted Monday that they still think about being left out of the College Football Playoff last season.

"It was a tough situation to have to go through," Norvell said, according to ESPN's David Hale.

Florida State defensive lineman Patrick Payton added that he doesn't believe the school will forget about the snub anytime soon.

"We'll be 50 or 60 and still thinking about it," he said.

Florida State became the first undefeated Power 5 conference champion ever to not make the playoffs.

FSU won the ACC and finished the 2023 regular season with a 13-0 record but didn't earn a CFP berth. The committee left the Seminoles out largely due to Jordan Travis' absence, as the star quarterback broke his leg in November. With Travis sidelined, two one-loss teams - Alabama and Texas - jumped Florida State in the final playoff rankings, joining undefeated Michigan and Washington in the top four.

The Seminoles missing the CFP became a hot topic again recently after SEC commissioner Greg Sankey seemingly took a shot at Florida State while saying that Georgia was the team with the most legitimate complaint about not making the committee's final top-four.

"Georgia was one of the best four teams and didn't get in," Sankey said last week, according to James Morgan of Yahoo Sports. "But you didn't see us jumping up and down and complaining and hanging national championship banners."

Norvell responded Monday to Sankey.

"I don't disagree that Georgia was one of the top four teams if you're judging off talent and ability, but they also earned their loss," Norvell said, per Hale. "That was part of the result of what happened on the field. When you look at our team and what it was, we controlled the things we could control, we unfortunately had an injury, but we had a team that responded to it. Everybody can have an opinion of what happened. I don't disagree they were one of the four best teams, but what happened on the field kept them out of the playoff."

Georgia entered last season as the reigning back-to-back champion but lost to Alabama in the SEC title game.

The Seminoles and Bulldogs faced off in the Orange Bowl, and Georgia blew out Florida State 63-3. With FSU out of the playoffs, though, the school had 20 players - including several key starters - opt out of that bowl game. Multiple Seminoles said before the Georgia matchup that they should've been considered national champions if FSU finished the 2023 season as college football's only undefeated Power 5 team.

"I tell people all the time - if we'd have lost the (ACC) championship game, I think a majority of those guys would've played," Norvell said.

Michigan ultimately took down Alabama in the CFP semifinal with a 27-20 overtime victory and then beat Washington 34-13 to win the national title.