Kalen DeBoer admits he feels for Florida State, credits program's resiliency

After winning the Pac-12 and sitting at 13-0, Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer didn’t have to worry about making the College Football Playoff. Of course, Florida State, in a similar situation, also felt that it should be in a good position to make the Playoff.

After the Seminoles got snubbed, DeBoer admitted that he felt badly for Florida State while crediting the program for its resiliency.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Kalen DeBoer said. “Absolutely. You do everything you can and the things you can’t control, you know, are the injuries and so forth. [I] watched them play last night and they’re obviously a really good football team.”

Kalen DeBoer is, of course, referencing the injury to Florida State quarterback Jordan Travis. It was that injury that the College Football Playoff selection committee largely used to justify not including Florida State at all in the Playoff.

Still, even without Travis, Florida State won the ACC Championship Game and DeBoer praised what he saw from the Seminoles. In particular, their team’s resiliency.

“Missing a piece of it, but just that resiliency that we talk about and that we’re so prideful in our program of in our football program, you can see that they have a lot of that too, and finding a way to work through it and get a W in a conference championship.”

Washington is now turning its attention to Texas for their Playoff matchup in the Sugar Bowl. Florida State, meanwhile, will head to the Orange Bowl for a game with Georgia.

Kalen DeBoer addresses if he thought Washington should be ranked No. 1

There were some people who thought that Washington should have been the top-ranked team in the country. While Kalen DeBoer isn’t overly worried about that, he does feel that the Huskies have a case for the top spot.

“No. I guess I didn’t really feel like that was probably gonna be the case. I think it was probably more of just a reality than anything that I was understanding,” DeBoer said.

“I think there’s an argument for it, but not one that I need to stand on the table for because I understand that, unless you play each other, head-to-head, there’s people who are going to fight for each program. It is what it is. So, they’ve had a great season there at Michigan and won their conference championship again and really rolled through their schedule for the most part.”