The Florida State University football team is stirring up yet another controversy, with two ESPN sports media personalities sitting on opposite sides of the aisle.
After Florida State went on an undefeated season and won the ACC but missed out on the College Football Playoff, which itself is controversial, the Seminoles lost 63-3 to Georgia in a close end-to-end game last Saturday. did.
The rout pitted Chris “Mad Dog” Russo and Robert Griffin III against each other, with both sharing their opinions on why things went so badly for Florida State in the bowl game. ing.
Russo, who appeared weekly on ESPN's “First Take,” especially after the team and even some Florida lawmakers criticized the playoff selection committee for leaving the Seminoles out of the four postseason teams. , blamed the Seminoles for the loss.
“Florida State, after three weeks of moaning about how bad they were, showed up to the Orange Bowl in front of all the fans, moaned, and then beat a bunch of amateurs to 63-3. We lost by 3' about how they messed up,'' Russo rants on the show.
“Oh, that's an incredible disgrace. What they did on Saturday was unbelievable. Seminoles, you're a disgrace to college football.”
Already without quarterback Jordan Travis, who was lost for the season with a serious foot injury in November, Florida State lost backup signal-caller Tate Rodmaker as players opted out or entered the transfer portal. They played the bowl game without at least 29 scholarship players, including: .
With this in mind, Griffin sympathized with the Seminoles, feeling they should have been one of the top four teams after being left out of the shuffle despite going undefeated in the regular season and winning the conference title.
“FSU is no disgrace to college football,” the former quarterback and ESPN personality wrote. “FSU didn't have to prove they belonged because they had already proven it in the regular season. Georgia did so against a team that had 23 opt-outs (13 starters) who did not play. I did what I had to do. Be respectful and stop talking nonsense.”
After last weekend's dismantling, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said it was time to change the system that allowed such a disappointing game.
“People need to see what happened tonight and we need to fix this,” Smart told reporters after his team's win. “That needs to be fixed. It's very disappointing because they have a good football team and a good football program and they're in the position they're in right now.”
If this had happened next season, when we move to a 12-team playoff, this discussion probably wouldn't have happened.
