Kirby Smart Sounds Off On 'Unfortunate' State Of College Football Following Georgia's Orange Bowl Blowout Of Florida State

Call it whatever you want, but the current state of postseason college football has turned into a running joke, outside of the playoffs, leading to strong words from Kirby Smart. This was on full-display Saturday night in Miami, as Georgia destroyed 5th ranked Florida State 63-3.

The on-field product for Florida State was decimated by a number of different factors, mostly centered around players deciding to opt-out of the game to prevent potential injury. There's also the transfer portal, which has been the talk of college football, especially the timing of it opening and closing.

It's certainly not lost on folks what this game meant for a Florida State team that was snubbed by the playoff committee due to circumstances beyond their control. But still, the opinions of those on social media wavered between blaming Florida State players for quitting on their teammates or even those headed for the NFL not wanting to finish the job and prove the doubters wrong.

When asked after the game if the team thought about not playing in the Orange Bowl, Mike Norvell spoke about the challenging month.

"I mean, it was hard choices for a lot of the young men that were on our team. We were hurt," Mike Norvell said. "I think that's -- when you do the things that our guys did throughout the year and the way that they responded, the way they fought, the way that they just pulled together, it hurt when we were not selected.

"It was, like I said, the most challenging month I've ever had in my coaching career because you feel for your players."

But as we look towards the future of college football, with the twelve team playoff starting next season, we will still be dealing with circumstances like we witnessed between Georgia and FSU. It's not as if these other bowl games outside of the playoffs will disappear, they will still be played because of the money wrapped up in bowl season.

Kirby Smart Frustrated With The Current Landscape In CFB

Just because ESPN has the broadcasting rights for the new playoff format doesn't mean they will just get rid of their inventory of remaining bowl games, especially when they see the advertising dollars generated from them all.

We've come to a crossroads in the sport, and for Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, the unfortunate situation needs to be fixed.

“People need to see what happened tonight, and they need to fix this. It needs to be fixed," Kirby Smart said postgame. "It's very unfortunate that they, who have a good football team and a good football program, are in the position they're in. And I'm not even saying it's their fault. Everybody can say we had our guys and they didn't have their guys. I can listen to all of that, but college football has got to decide what they want. And I know things are changing, and I think some things are going to change next year. You know what: they're going to still be bowl games outside of those.

“People have got to decide what they want and what they really want to get out of it because it's really unfortunate for those kids on that sideline that had to play in that game that didn't have their full arsenal, and it affected the game 100%.”

He's certainly not wrong, and it was obvious to the viewers at home and the coaches on the sidelines that this is not sustainable.

Sure, the new playoff format will have eight more teams, and players will want to stick around to play for a title, but decisions need to be made about the future postseason product.

We are getting to a point where money cannot solve all of these problems, unless you're the television networks.