NFL
By: Zachary Draves
The righteous indignation amongst those calling out the college football playoff committee’s snubbing of Florida State is more than warranted. The fact that a team who went through the season undefeated and won the ACC conference title wasn’t even given the chance to compete for a national championship fuels legitimate distrust over the whole college football playoff selection process that can be easily defined as selective.
(Courtesy: Erik Verduzco/AP)
It is painstakingly devastating to all the players, coaches, and staff who put on an incredible season especially after their starting QB Jordan Travis was injured with a broken leg on November 18 that ended his season. Questions surrounding a potential bias in favor of Alabama, who secured the fourth and final spot in the playoff, continue to be asked as it looks to be the case that they were chosen merely for television ratings.
(Courtesy: Morgan Tencza-USA TODAY Sports)
There is suspicion that they are hoping for a potential national title game between the Crimson Tide and Michigan, which will certainly be ratings gold.
There is no problem calling this out for what it appears. There is a problem however with a select few who are lending themselves into this saga and turning it into, you guessed it, a political football.
Two of those few are Florida governor and current GOP Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis and one of Florida’s two GOP senators and former Florida governor Rick Scott.
(Courtesy: John Raoux/AP Photo)
Beginning with the latter, Sen. Scott issued a three page letter to committee chairman Boo Corrigan on Monday demanding “total transparency” into how they reached their decision including emails and text messages.
The issue here is that the word “transparency” doesn’t apply to Sen. Scott, because he hasn’t practiced it himself.
It turns out he facilitated one of the largest health care frauds in U.S. history. He was the chief executive for the Columbia Hospital Corporation, a for-profit company from the early 1980’s until 1997 that the Department of Justice found to have defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs out of millions of dollars.
The end result was a $1.7 billion fine and 14 felony convictions.
Since then, Sen. Scott has never been able to live that down and it is often brought up by his opponents pushing back against his efforts to reform, or as they see it drastically cut, popular federal programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Then there is Gov. DeSantis.
He has somehow found the time out of his dwindling presidential campaign to not only speak up on behalf of the Seminoles, but to put the taxpayers’ money where his mouth is.
On Tuesday, he announced that he would be setting aside $1 million out of the Florida state budget to Florida State in any future litigation against the playoff committee.
“But what we decided to do, we’re setting aside a million dollars for any litigation expenses that may become as a result of this really, really poor decision by the college football playoffs to exclude an undefeated team who won a big Power Five conference championship,” he said at a press conference announcing his budget proposal for fiscal year 2024-2025.
He admitted that it most likely wouldn’t change the outcome, but to let“the chips fall where they may on that.”
Keep in mind that this is taxpayer money that will be virtually wasted.
More than that, the Associated Press reported that over 1,000 jobs will be cut due to Gov. DeSantis’ budget proposal and that he wouldn’t elaborate as to which jobs would be lost during his press conference. Instead, he devoted a good portion of the time talking about Florida State.
Also, it seems so obvious to point out, but that $1 million would be better served for more urgent matters.
According to Feeding America, one of the nations’ largest anti-hunger organizations, 2,314,370 Floridians (1 in 9). face hunger every day, including 613,180 children (1 in 7). It also estimates that it will cost $1,533,552,000 more per year to meet the food needs of Floridians.
It goes without saying that the $1 million being set aside for a lost cause would be better used to feed the hungry. After all, a devout christian such as Gov. DeSantis, understands that right?
Yes, Florida State was jobbed and it is not right. Yes, the college football playoff committee deserves what is coming to them. But when two of Florida’s most prominent political figures, one embattled and one with delusions of grandeur, both equally petty, use this to meet their own political ends, that needs to be called out as well.
If anything, they are both acting like sore losers even though they didn’t play, and could learn a thing or two about handling the agony of defeat. Especially Sen. Scott, who in 2021 voted against the certification of the 2020 election results, perpetuating the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen.
They could also learn about grace and class from Jordan Travis himself, who issued a message on social media to Alabama QB Jalen Milroe that read “Go win it all brodie”.
In life, much like sports, things don’t always go the way you want it to be. The sooner that is known the better. It is unfathomable to tell this to two grown men, but at the end of the day, it is just a game.
