Twistity Sports Exclusive: POLL CATS

At the rate Florida State is going, one more win and it will not be allowed to compete for the national championship.

All FSU does is win. Twenty eight consecutive games. The Seminoles are the only unbeaten major college team this season at 12-0. Their reward? They keep slipping in the polls and in the all-important College Football Playoff rankings.

The latest CFP rankings, released Tuesday night, dropped FSU a spot to fourth place … behind TCU. That’s 10-1 TCU. Note the skinny digit after the dash in the same spot where FSU has a zero. And note that TCU (that’s third-place TCU), is three spots ahead of 10-1 Baylor, which beat the Horned Frogs in October. There must be a good explanation but so far all that is heard across the Texas landscape is the chirping of crickets.

The CFP rankings mean everything because they set the field for the first-ever playoff at the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS – big schools). Four qualify, so the final rankings on Dec. 7 effectively cut the nominees for national champ to (you guessed it) four. No others need apply.

No. 1 Alabama has a loss. So does No. 2 Oregon. So does No. 3 TCU. But the No. 4 team, which is the defending national champion, has no losses. Its victories, apparently, just are not as satisfying as those of teams that have lost. Ok then.

Granted, FSU has won in less-than-impressive style and more narrowly at times than expected. But as Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson noted in discussing FSU’s string of victories, “It’s hard to win.” He’ll find out how hard when Tech (10-2) meets FSU for the ACC championship on Saturday.

If FSU wins, it should be in the final four of the CFP rankings (should being the operative word). It will get its day in the playoffs, if not the matchup it deserves. If Baylor is on the outside watching TCU on the inside, what exactly has this playoff accomplished?
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .