Kirby Smart bemoans FSU’s opt-outs following Georgia’s crushing in the Orange Bowl.

Florida’s Miami Gardens — In the Capital One Orange Bowl, which featured the two best teams not in the College Football Playoff, only sixth-ranked Georgia appeared to be the match, which infuriated Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart.

In the biggest victory margin in bowl history, Georgia defeated No. 5 Florida State 63-3, surpassing the Bulldogs’ 58-point triumph over TCU in the previous season’s national championship game. However, the Seminoles’ injuries and a plethora of opt-outs were partially to blame for the lopsided result.

“After what happened tonight, people need to see this and fix this,” Smart said, bemoaning the influx of portal entries and opt-outs on teams participating in bowl games that aren’t playoffs. “It must be rectified.

The Seminoles played without their top two quarterbacks, top two running backs, top two receivers, starting tight end, three starting defensive linemen, two of three starting linebackers and three starting defensive backs. All told, they were down 29 scholarship players.

Coach Mike Norvell of Florida State made a strong suggestion that a large portion of his team’s opt-outs were motivated by the College Football Playoff committee’s decision to exclude the 13-0 Seminoles team from the playoffs in favor of Texas and Alabama, two one-loss teams.

Third-string quarterback Brock Glenn led a lackluster offense as Florida State defeated Louisville 16–6 in the ACC championship game. The committee used that performance, along with the injury to star quarterback Jordan Travis that came before it, as justification to prevent an undefeated Power 5 team from making the playoffs.

“Every circumstance is unique,” Norvell remarked. “There has never been anything like ours in college football. In the end, I believe that it was very difficult due to a variety of factors. I firmly think that things might have turned out a bit differently if we had lost the [ACC] title game.