The former Seminole has a strong opinion on being held out of the College Football Playoff.
Half a year has passed since Florida State’s infamous College Football Playoff snub following a 13-0 campaign and ACC Championship. Time hasn’t healed the wound or eased the anger that Seminole fans felt in the aftermath of a historic slight at the hands of the committee.
According to former FSU star wide receiver Keon Coleman, there’s one party to blame for all of the chaos; Georgia. The Bulldogs had a chance to lock up the top spot in the four-team field with a victory against Alabama in the SEC Championship. Instead, they came up short and opened the door for the Crimson Tide and Texas Longhorns to leave the Seminoles on the outside looking in.
During a recent appearance on Robert Griffin III’s ‘RG3 and The Ones’ Podcast, Coleman went into detail about the snub and his feelings in the weeks that followed. He pointed out that the Orange Bowl wasn’t a true testament to Florida State’s ability as none of the program’s ten picks in the 2024 NFL Draft participated. In a real matchup, Coleman believes the Seminoles ‘would have put a spear straight through’ Georgia.
“How many players we had drafted? Ten or 11? We’re going to see who’s going to come out better in the NFL – that’s the only way you can tell. Of course, they want to play, they’re playing in the ‘Mad as H E L L’ Bowl,” Coleman said. “They mad because they lost. What ya’ll mad because ya’ll lost? Ya’ll think you’re supposed to just get in because you’re Georgia? If you would have won [in the SEC Championship], you would have found out who was better between Florida State and Georgia. You would have played us in the ‘matter bowl.’ The bowl that mattered. We’re not going to play y’all in a bowl that don’t matter. That’s a waste of time.”
“If y’all would have won and did what y’all were supposed to do, y’all would have would have had to see us. We would have been up doing this [while doing the Tomahawk Chop] the whole time. All of that barking, we would have put a spear straight through you,” Coleman continued. “Ain’t no barking, that’s dead. You would have found out, but the world may never know because Georgia decided to lose. We should question they toughness to Bama. How y’all keep choking?”
Coleman is convinced that Florida State would’ve made the College Football Playoff if Georgia had taken care of business. Regardless, he noted that the sport is a business and it was obvious that his team’s chances took a hit after quarterback Jordan Travis was lost for the season due to a leg injury.
“I mean, when you start to understand the business of college and professional sports, there’s a lot of politicking in it, which I don’t get into it, they’re going to do what they want to do regardless. At the end of the day man, like with the teams that were in, when Georgia lost, it was like, somebody is going to have to stand on the table for us to get in because the No. 1 team loses to Nick Saban and Bama, Bama in,” Coleman said. “But then the team that beat Bama dominated they conference championship and they were within the top 6, I was like ‘the politicking going to probably put Texas in.’ I want us to get in bad but I’m like, ‘the politics with college football with the views, the clicks, they’ve got their star power, we lost our star QB, they might slight us that way, they might not let us get in.’ But I’m like, ‘man, I still hope we get in’ but like I said, I kind of understand the business of football, I understand how things work. I don’t agree with it but I’m not the one getting paid to make those decisions.”
As soon as the decision was revealed on national television, the Seminoles knew their season was effectively over. 20 members of FSU’s two-deep from the chart released for the home finale against North Alabama decided to opt out, transfer, or undergo surgery. That left a group mainly made up of reserves and younger players to face the Bulldogs in Miami Gardens.
“We were mad. We got up and left. We were like ‘ain’t nothing else to talk about.’ The season, ain’t no more playing no bowl game because what we’re doing? We’re about to go play a bowl game – that’s like playing an 18th game and they’re playing in the Super Bowl,” Coleman said. “What we really doing? When we’re supposed to be there, like, c’mon bro. They should’ve just did the playoffs at that point. It was BS, I’ll call it what it was but you know, ain’t much we can really do about it just have to keep on going.”
The Seminoles were understandably heartbroken after becoming the only undefeated P5 conference championship to be left out of the playoff since it was introduced in 2014. There will never be an explanation that justifies why a team that never lost didn’t even have a chance to compete for a national title.
“For the most part, 90% of us was banged up anyway. That’s just an extra week we get to recover going into this process, we’re trying to elimate the MRIs at the combine, we’re trying to cut it to ten,” Coleman quipped. “So it’s like, man, we’re just going to take the time to recover but our hearts were broken at that point. All the love was lost, we was like, ‘we did everything ya’ll told us to do, beat everybody up on the schedule, did everything right and we still like, what more could we have done?’ People say dominate the ACC Championship game, everybody has games like that. Which is how you come out and win, our defense stepped up and helped us bring that win in so it’s like a win is a win at the end of the day. You can’t dominate a loss.”
While his college career concluded on a sour note, Coleman was selected by the Buffalo Bills with the No. 33 overall pick over the weekend. He’ll have a chance to take out his frustration on the NFL in 2024 while catching pases from Josh Allen.