Tyreek Hill Vented to Alabama Stars Tua, Waddle for FSU Snub by Playoff Committee
Count Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill among those who believe undefeated Florida State should not have been left out of the College Football Playoff in favor of one-loss Alabama.
"I wasn't too happy," he said on his It Needed to be Said podcast (20-minute mark). "I was in the locker room letting Tua [Tagovailoa] hear about it, letting Jaylen Waddle hear about it. … I was letting all those Bama guys on our team hear about it. How do y'all make the top four when there's an undefeated FSU team?"
While Hill surely had some fun teasing his teammates who went to Alabama about the preferential treatment the Crimson Tide received, he expressed sympathy for the Florida State players who did everything asked of them throughout the season on the way to an undefeated record.
Yet the CFP selection committee kept the Seminoles out of the field because star quarterback Jordan Travis is sidelined by injury, which impacts the team's ability to compete with the best in the nation and win a championship.
CFP selection chair Boo Corrigan said as much during an appearance on ESPN:
While Florida State may not have looked as dominant during wins against Florida and Louisville as it did when Travis was under center, it still earned those victories. And the win over Louisville gave it an ACC championship and added a victory over a top-15 team to its resume.
Still, it wasn't enough to prevent it from becoming the first undefeated Power Five conference team to be left out of the CFP in the history of the event.
For his part, Travis said he wished his injury came sooner so his team had more time to prove it was worthy of a selection without him:
Instead, Florida State will face Georgia in the Orange Bowl, while fourth-seeded Alabama will play against top-seeded Michigan in the first round of the CFP.
Things will be different next season when the playoff field expands from four teams to 12, but that—along with Hill's sympathy—is surely of little solace to Florida State and its fans at this point.
