CFP Chair Boo Corrigan Explains Why FSU Stayed In Front Of Washington In Latest Rankings

The Seminoles and Huskies are currently jockeying for the final spot in the College Football Playoff.

The final stretch of the 2023 regular season is upon us and that means the College Football Playoff is inching closer each day. Florida State is one of the final few teams that have a chance of making it inside of the top 4.

READ MORE: Florida State Continues To Sit In Top-4 Of Latest College Football Playoff Rankings

That was reflected in the latest CFP rankings that were released on Tuesday night as the Seminoles stood pat at No. 4 in the country. The top six were made up of No. 1 Ohio State, No. 2 Georgia, No. 3 Michigan, No. 4 FSU, No. 5 Washington, and No. 6 Oregon.

Shortly after the rankings were revealed, College Football Playoff Selection Committee Chair, Boo Corrigan, discussed the second edition of the CFP top 25. Corrigan makes up one of the 13 members of the committee that decides where teams stack up each week.

There's a lot of wonder about what exactly the group is looking for each week when dictating which teams are playoff contenders and which teams aren't. Corrigan noted that they consider "everything" while trying to make sure that everyone offers their opinion. 

"We're going to look at everything. Every game matters," Corrigan said on Tuesday night. "You talk to any coach, they're going to talk about every game mattering and winning matters, et cetera."

"The beauty of this committee to me is it's not driven by watching games. It's not driven specifically by the resume or by the metrics," Corrigan continued. 'We work really hard and take everything in. We work really hard to get everyone in the room to talk and make sure that they're voicing their opinions."

Florida State's latest victory didn't come easy as the program walked out of Pittsburgh with a 24-7 result. The Seminoles snapped a 14-game 30+ point streak by the time the afternoon was over as two major offensive weapons - Johnny Wilson and Keon Coleman - were unavailable due to injury.

Regardless, the committee decided not to drop FSU based on its performance, taking the beaten-up wide receiver corps into consideration.

"Yeah, again, really good team," Corrigan said. "Coach Norvell has done a heck of a job down there in Tallahassee, and the combination of the wins over LSU and at Clemson, against Duke, winning last week without Johnny Wilson and Keon Coleman, two of their key elements of offense, and the physicality of their defense, and their offense puts up 40 points a game, the defense allows about 17 points a game. So they continue to play really well, and it's a really well-coached football team."

It was an extremely close debate between the Seminoles and Huskies, especially with the latter coming off a thrilling top-25 victory over USC. Corrigan provided some insight into the decision with both teams remaining undefeated and on track to compete for conference championships.

"Not to be funny, but you can't get much closer than 4 to 5 in what we're doing. Again, we talked a lot about it," Corrigan said. "The close calls with Arizona State and Stanford, who have a combined five wins, a defense that's giving up 42 and 33 – 33 points twice and 32 points in games, incredibly explosive offense. Michael Penix, Jr., has been amazing this year, but as we looked at it, we had Washington at 5 below Florida State."

The Seminoles are only projected to play one more top-25 team and that won't be until the ACC Championship game. They do have contests remaining against Miami and Florida that could draw consideration from the committee.

On the other hand, Washington will conclude a run of facing three ranked opponents over its next two games with upcoming matchups against No. 18 Utah and No. 12 Oregon State. The Huskies will likely face another top-25 team in the PAC-12 Conference Championship game.

Florida State is scheduled to match up with Miami this weekend. The game will kick off at 3:30 p.m. and be televised on ABC.

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