Stephen A. Smith suggests Deion Sanders could have pushed Florida State into the College Football Playoff

According to Stephen A. Smith, the 2023 Florida State Seminoles have no buzz and Deion Sanders would have changed that.

The final season of the four-team College Football Playoff may have been its most controversial one yet, with Florida State suffering a brutal snub by the selection committee. With FSU becoming the first Power 5 team in the history of the CFP to go undefeated, win their conference title and still not make the playoff, outrage ensued. Leave it up to Stephen A. Smith to be the voice of reason.

Monday morning on ESPN’s First Take, Smith argued against FSU making the final four, not so much as a defense of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, but more so as a means of revealing the cold hard truth that sizzle matters.

“I bet you if Primetime Deion Sanders was that coach, they wouldn’t have gotten left out.”

—@stephenasmith on Florida State missing out on the CFP pic.twitter.com/DEEwjK5geT

— First Take (@FirstTake) December 4, 2023

“I’m gonna say this and it’s gonna be very, very uncomfortable. But it’s necessary to say this,” Smith said. “I’m gonna bring up Prime Time Deion Sanders. I bet you if Prime Time Deion Sanders was their coach they wouldn’t have gotten left out.”

Smith proceeded to note that FSU head coach Mike Norvell is a “sensational coach and has done a sensational job” in leading his team to an undefeated record this season.

“But why do I bring that up?” Smith continued of Sanders. “Because if Prime Time had an undefeated team, the sizzle that he brings to the sport matters! We want to act like it doesn’t matter, but it matters. Because it’s a business.”

According to Smith, once quarterback Jordan Travis suffered a season-ending leg injury last month, FSU was going to have a hard time getting a CFP bid. And if Norvell’s team was going to get in, they had to do it by proving they were still capable of being an offensive juggernaut.

Regardless of whether their season was deserving of a CFP bid, Smith believes the committee feared another thrashing in the national championship game like the one TCU endured last season. And FSU, without Travis, doesn’t offer enough sizzle to make them worth the risk of being noncompetitive.

Sanders, however, who previously wanted the FSU job, and who won Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year despite leading Colorado to a 1-8 conference record this year, would have carried enough sizzle to overcome the committee’s fear of a backup quarterback.

[First Take]