Have you ever felt cheated from an achievement or experience you felt that you earned? The  Florida State University (FSU) college football team feels the same way right now. Every year, college football teams play against each other to claim the number one spot being the best team and national champions. This provides a look at student athletes who could have an even further career in football and more. This year, FSU went undefeated, 13-0, despite the fact that they lost their starting quarterback; however, the CFB Playoff Committee chose Alabama over them to go to the playoffs,(a record of 12-1). This decision was unfair and disrespectful to the FSU football team who worked hard all year, despite the huge mountains they had to climb over. Alabama has a big name and many people believe that they were selected to make the most money. Many different trusted people have given their own opinions about the committee as well; sparking up even more disagreement towards the committees decision. Some think that since FSU isn't in more popular conferences, that they don't  have a chance to play in the championship because they play too ¨soft¨ of teams.

Popularity shouldn't be a factor into who is able to go into the championship games. According to College football HQ and written by James Parks, shows a study on the top sixteen teams with the highest fan bases, Alabama is ranked eighth, with a fan base of 5.34 million fans. Florida State is not even included in the top sixteen. This arose suspicion to big companies, teams, celebrities and more; making most believe the committee who chose the teams to play, in fact, only picked the team that could make the most money. ESPN ( a well known, multinational sports media) even describes the situation as a popularity contest. Another news article Deseret News reported on the CFB disaster. They state, ¨By ignoring FSU and giving Alabama a playoff berth, they didn’t even make a pretense that college football is fair — the deck is stacked in favor of some teams and conferences (hint: their initials are “SEC”), and the rankings and regular-season games are, to some extent, pointless.¨ Written by Doug Robinson, this proves that the lights shine on the big teams and give smaller teams little to no chance at being able to compete when it comes to another higher in popularity team.

Many popular people have been recognized recently for speaking out about the shocking news. Jameis Winston, quarterback for the NFL Saints is just one example of someone who shared how they felt about the playoffs and how he was ¨hurt by the news¨. This was published on sport illustrated. Another example could be Paul Finebaum. Paul is a very trusted sports author from ESPN, calling the committee out for its ¨act of transparency after releasing the final rankings.¨ This was sited directly from ESPN.The list of people who disagree with this upsetting choice from the committee could go on forever.

Although many are upset, some believe the committee made the right choice, claiming alabama is the better team. If this were true, that would mean FSU is a D1 school, but not on the same level as other colleges like Alabama or Ohio state; making it another popularity contest on who thinks who is better. A team who goes undefeated cant do anything else to go beyond that point. The ultimate goal is to go undefeated and they achieved that even with losing their star quarterback. 

Putting everything together, the CFB Playoff Committee made a mistake. They made a decision that was unfair, disrespectful and flat-out wrong. Money should not be the main focus of college football, it should be a showcase of who the best players are and puts all these teams in the spotlight for a bigger future in sports. Trusted people like Jameis Winston and Paul Finebaum are just a few from many who shared their negative reactions to the committee, creating an even bigger uproar from people all over the country. FSU should have the same chances every other team has. No matter how much money or how popular the team can be. That's what creates the big question; is college football really fair?