On Sunday afternoon, Florida State football found itself on the wrong end of history when it became the first ever undefeated Power Five conference champion to be excluded from the College Football Playoff. Sliding into the fourth spot instead of Florida State was the Alabama Crimson Tide, who defeated Georgia in the SEC Championship Game but did not finish undefeated, leading many to question the College Football Playoff committee's decision-making process.

Recently, LSU head coach Brian Kelly, who coached against both Alabama and Florida State this season, broke down his perspective on the committee's shocking snub.

“It was probably the most difficult one that they were confronted with,” said Kelly, per Sidelines – Bama on X (via The Next Round on X). “We knew that there were five conferences from the very beginning, and there's only four spots, so if you did the math, you just needed to look at the five conference champions, and say there's four slots… we played Florida State, and we played Alabama. Two outstanding football teams. But the two football teams were different at the end of the season than they were at the start of the season, so I think that, from my perspective, unfortunately, Florida State was not the same team earlier in the year that they were later in the year because of the injury to the quarterback.”

Indeed, the injury to quarterback Jordan Travis was largely blamed as the culprit for the committee's decision. Still, don't expect that to make this pill go down easier for Seminoles fans.