Will Undefeated Seasons Become Irrelevant for the College Football Playoff?

The College Football Playoff selection process is far from perfect, but say this for it: It's the anti-BCS. Yes, that's still a good thing.

Had the BCS still been in place this season, the general consensus is that Florida State and Alabama—likely in that order—would have been playing for the national championship. Oregon and Ohio State, the two teams actually competing for the playoff championship on Jan. 12, would have been left out.

In that sense, the first season with the playoff should be considered a success. At the very least, the committee got one thing right that the BCS would not have: Florida State wasn't the No. 1 team in college football even though it was the only undefeated team remaining after the regular season.

There had been too many close calls, too many come-from-behind victories needed against lesser opponents. This was obviously not the same dominant Florida State team that went undefeated in 2013.

The committee felt as much by making the Seminoles the No. 3 seed against No. 2 Oregon in the Rose Bowl. “I ain’t worried about No. 1,” Seminoles coach Jimbo Fisher said via Marc Tracy of The New York Times after winning the ACC Championship Game against Georgia Tech Dec. 6. “We’ll be in the playoff.”

Fisher was right, and so was the committee.

You know the result by now: A 59-20 rout in which Florida State's miscues, which had been a problem all year, finally became insurmountable.

The Seminoles could overcome stretches of poor play against the likes of North Carolina State, Louisville, Miami and Florida. Oregon is far and away a better team than any of those others, and thus Florida State paid dearly for five second-half turnovers.

That poses two questions: Was Florida State ever one of the four best teams in the nation? And along those lines, is an undefeated season relevant to a playoff push?

There's no easy answer to the first question because it's clouded by hindsight. The Rose Bowl loss, coupled with TCU's convincing 42-3 win over Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl, provides the opportunity for second-guessing.

However, the selection committee felt that Florida State earned its place among the final four. At the time of Selection Sunday, the debate wasn't whether Florida State or TCU should get in the field. It was about TCU, Baylor or Ohio State, all one-loss teams.

If the committee had a crystal-ball view into the semifinals, well, we wouldn't need a selection committee at all.

As Graham Watson of Yahoo Sports writes, any other decision would have set an incredible precedent:

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By leaving the only undefeated team out of the playoff, if such a thing comes to pass, the College Football Committee risks setting a dangerous precedent. It’s essentially saying that no matter the result of a contest, teams are subject to the whimsy of the committee and how it feels a team should have played versus how it did play even if it won. 

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With that said, the committee certainly showed that the number of wins and losses alone do not dictate seeding. Otherwise, the order would be simple: All undefeated teams would rank ahead of one-loss teams, which would rank ahead of two-loss teams and so on.

In fact, the Seminoles dropped in the playoff rankings behind one-loss teams—from No. 2 to No. 3, and from No. 3 to No. 4—two times during the regular season.

Is going undefeated irrelevant, though? Not in a Power Five conference like the ACC. It's tough to envision an unbeaten team from any power conference being left out, barring multiple other undefeated squads from similar conferences.

The committee will still look at strength of schedule, the so-called "eye test" and more. An unbeaten season will be a factor and therefore relevant to the discussion.

It's simply too difficult to go undefeated in any conference for it not to be a consideration. Florida State may have been America's most hated team, but that doesn't mean the Seminoles didn't accomplish plenty during their 29-game winning streak.

One loss won't forever alter how undefeated teams are viewed.

Ben Kercheval is a lead writer for college football.