Florida Football: “Don’t mix politics and sports,” except for FSU pity party

We here at Hail Florida Hail dedicate most of our time to Florida football. We are a sports site; thus, we don’t weigh in on political issues because they seldom involve the Gators.

But in the wake of our Neighbors to the West being incapable of understanding how they were left out of the College Football Playoff after going 13-0, politicians are falling over themselves to help throw FSU the world’s biggest pity party.

Florida Football: Double Standard

We live in a crazy world where an undefeated team can be leapfrogged so easily by a one-loss team. What is the point of playing the games if a team can be left out when they never lost? It is insane to think that a one-loss team would be placed ahead of three undefeated teams to have a shot at the national title.

We are, of course, talking about the 1993 season when FSU, despite having lost to Notre Dame, was granted the right to play Nebraska for the national championship in the Orange Bowl.

FSU was selected over undefeated West Virginia and Auburn (which was on post-season probation), and was selected over a one loss Notre Dame squad.

You know, the same Notre Dame squad that beat FSU head-to-head?

So unless FSU wants to have a deep-dive conversation about why it was conceivable they deserved to hop an undefeated team and a team that beat them head-to-head back then, but it is the end of the world now, perhaps save some of the pearl-clutching for a better time.

Oh, but that hasn’t stopped the rich men north of Richmond from acting like a team that bumbled and stumbled through the 55th-ranked strength of schedule being left out of the playoffs is Florida and America’s most pressing issue.

Senator Rick Scott penned a letter to the CFP Committee titled “We Demand Transparency Regarding Unprecedented Exclusion of Undefeated FSU.”

"“The Committee’s decision to remove FSU from playoff contention is also difficult to understand given the Committee’s actions in prior years when ranking other undefeated, Power Five conference champions among the top four teams in the nation. While I understand that the Committee considered the tragic, season-ending injury to FSU quarterback Jordan Travis, I am confused as to why this was not a factor in the previous week’s rankings. One week ago, the Committee chose to rank FSU as the 4th-best team in the nation, moving them up from fifth place following the road-game win in Gainesville against the University of Florida Gators. As you know, this win occurred after Mr. Travis’s injury. It’s difficult to understand how FSU’s next win, over the 14th-ranked University of Louisville Cardinals, would reflect poorly on the team and result in a ranking drop and exclusion from the College Football Playoffs.”"

We established this earlier in the week, Mr. Scott; even with Jordan Travis, the Seminoles were living off their golden goose win against LSU. The same LSU squad that Alabama also smacked, and it was only the third-best win of the season for the Crimson Tide.

We’re also going to assume Scott, like most politicians, didn’t write this letter himself. So, in the end, it’s cheap political points that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

Then there is Govenor Ron Desantis. He, too, sent out a Tweet/X on Sunday, acting bewildered.

Again, do you.

But he couldn’t leave it at that, and the people who have told us they don’t want to mix politics with sports are about to do just that.

Yesterday, Desantis announced that the state of Florida would set aside $1 million for litigation expenses that can be utilized for any lawsuit FSU plans to pursue after being snubbed.

If you are keeping score at home, Desantis blocked money the Tampa Bay Rays would use to build a new training facility. The timing came a week after the Rays tweeted out an array of gun statistics following the massacre in Uvalde, TX.

At the time, Desantis said:

"“We were not in a situation where use of tax dollars for a professional stadium would have been a prudent use”"

Money for a new stadium?

Bad.

Money to have a pity party for FSU?

Good.

The meltdown from the Neighbors to the West isn’t surprising and there are fair debates to be had that FSU deserved to get in over Alabama and Texas.

But what has been obvious watching the national media and various politicians clutch their pearls is that most people watched the second half of FSU vs LSU, ingrained that image in their mind, and then didn’t watch FSU play for the rest of the season.

If they had, they wouldn’t be trying to gain cheap political points because they would have watched a squad that repeatedly had a chance to prove it was a top-four team in the country and failed to do so.