Athlon Sports
Saturday's Orange Bowl between the Florida State Seminoles and Georgia Bulldogs was supposed to be a battle between two top-10 teams. Instead, it looked like a college football powerhouse facing an FCS opponent.
The Bulldogs crushed the Seminoles in a 63-3 Orange Bowl victory on Saturday afternoon. It was yet another example of what's wrong with college football right now.
Florida State's top players, including running back Trey Benson and wide receivers Keon Coleman and Johnny Wilson, opted out of the game after being snubbed from the College Football Playoff. The result? A 60-point loss to Georgia in front of a national-TV audience in a New Year's Six Bowl.
Kirby Smart is calling on college football to make immediate changes to the bowl system. Good teams like Florida State shouldn't be penalized like they were, which results in opt outs and an entirely different team being fielded.
"People need to see what happened tonight and they need to fix this," Smart said. "It needs to be fixed.
"It's very unfortunate that they, who has a good football team and a good football program, are in the position they're in."
Strong words from Coach Smart. As he mentioned, changes are indeed on the way.
The exclusive four-team playoff will expand to 12 teams next season. But that won't fix all the issues. Teams left outside of the 12-team playoff will still be invited to various bowl games, and opt outs are still going to happen.
There's no clear solution to fix this. But we can all agree that Saturday's Orange Bowl was a disaster for college football.