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When College Football Playoff Chief Operating Officer Michael Kelly showed up at the ACC spring meetings in Amelia Island, Fla., this week, the aggrieved coaches took the opportunity to air their grievances.
Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher believes his team was snubbed last season, according to ESPN's Andrea Adelson. The Seminoles were the reigning national champions and had won 29 straight games, yet they earned a No. 3 seed from the CFP Selection Committee.
N.C. State head coach Dave Doeren thinks Florida State was overlooked because the ACC as a whole is regularly disrespected, per Adelson's report.
"We still feel there’s an uneven view of how good our league is," Doeren told ESPN. "Because of what happened three or four years ago with how many titles the SEC won, that’s still carrying into the present. No matter what sport you play, you have to win it this year. It doesn’t matter what happened three years ago. With Florida State—it doesn’t matter how they won, they won."
Doeren conveniently leaves out the fact that FSU ended up losing its semifinal matchup to Oregon, the No. 2 seed, by more than five touchdowns. Also, at least an ACC team got a team into the playoff; the Big 12 was the only Power 5 conference that didn't send a representative.
"On the whole, people realize it’s a difficult job," Kelly told ESPN. "It’s the first year for everybody trying to learn what prism the committee members are looking at things through, so they can do whatever they need to do for their program as it relates to scheduling. From our standpoint, perceptions are something we don’t think about. That’s their opinion. To me, they did have one of the teams in the playoff. The rankings of the ACC teams in the College Football Playoff rankings are higher than they are in the other polls. The committee members did evaluate by their protocol and it’s a whole different process to how it’s done in the AP poll and computer polls. It’s something everyone has to get used to."
The College Football Playoff is still only a year old, so it's a work in progress. We'll see how the ACC is treated by the selection committee in Year 2 after hearing the league's concerns.
(h/t ESPN)
Photo Credit: John David Mercer/USA TODAY Sports
