FSU AD Michael Alford claims he knew CFP snub was coming based on ESPN's choice of on-site reporter for selection show
Florida State athletic director Michael Alford has been on the warpath since the college football season ended and his undefeated, ACC champion football program was excluded from the 2023 College Football Playoff field. And he recently shared when he truly suspected a snub might be coming.
While FSU was ultimately elbowed out of the No. 4 seed by SEC champion Alabama, Alford didn’t initially think the committee would make such a decision. He shared with Danny Kanell and Dusty Dvoracek on SiriusXM how his view on the matter changed.
“Walking to the bus out of the locker room with some players that will remain nameless, I’ve got my hat, I’m ready,” Alford said of the post-ACC championship game scene. “But the conversation between the two of them, and I was just a part of, was one of them saying ‘We’re not going.’ And the other one saying, ‘What are you talking about?’ And this player, who is no longer with us, going ‘Follow the money. We’re not going to be in, Alabama won, we’re not going.’ And for a player to say that to me, and I just blew it off, I said ‘No way, we’re in.’ Told them both, ‘It’s never happened before, a 13-0 and a Power 5 conference champion, we’re going.'”
However Alford would be proven wrong, and he really internalize that the Seminoles would be left out, he said, until he saw that ESPN had assigned Harry Lyles Jr. as the on-site reporter for Florida State for the selection show, while Marty Smith was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
“But really the next day, when we went to the selection show and when I get there and look up and see who’s covering us and see that Marty Smith is in Tuscaloosa, that hit me: We’re not in,” Alford said. “And I did not get really worried until I saw that. And then I kind of knew, OK, we may not be in here. then when Texas popped up I knew for sure that it was not going to be us.”
Alford also characterized the conversations around the Seminoles and their playoff chances after the gruesome leg injury to quarterback Jordan Travis as “alarming.”
“I went back and watched that show and listened to the narrative, out of the broadcast both, and that alarmed me. That was like, ‘Wow.’ That was alarming, alarming conversations that were going on,” Alford said.