The Committee Clause
Travel back with me, dear reader, to December 3, 2023.
“I am disgusted and infuriated with the committee's decision today to have what was earned on the field taken away because a small group of people decided they knew better than the results of the games.”
You don’t need me to tell you who said that. It was Florida State head coach Mike Norvell. His team was undefeated, ACC champions, and suddenly exiled from the playoff because their star quarterback, Jordan Travis, had broken his leg weeks earlier.
“As you look at who they are as a team right now…they are a different team,” said CFP chair Boo Corrigan. “The committee voted Alabama four and Florida State five.”
At the time, it was shocking but by the book. Buried deep in the CFP’s fine print lies a key phrase: the committee can project how the “unavailability of key players and coaches” might affect a team's performance.
Read that again. Players and coaches.
Which brings us to now.
As Florida was getting buried in Lexington on Saturday night, word began spreading in Gainesville that Lane Kiffin might be asked to report for duty the moment the regular season ends. The Gators are out of patience, out of excuses, and out of time. But that sense of urgency collides head-on with something else: an Ole Miss team possibly bound for the playoff.
Florida insiders insist they have a plan. And perhaps that plan has a silent partner - the playoff committee itself.
The question no one wants to say out loud - what if Kiffin’s departure triggers the same kind of evaluation that doomed Florida State? How does the committee judge Ole Miss without the man who built it?
The Rebels aren’t exactly steamrolling people. They’re outscoring SEC opponents by just 5.6 points per game. Every league win, save one, has gone down to the wire. The defense is ordinary. The offense is Kiffin. He’s the architect, the engine, the spark. Take him out, and what’s the point spread shift? Six points? More?
So what happens when the committee sits down with that reality?
At 11-1, Ole Miss probably gets in - unless the roster starts hemorrhaging into the portal before Christmas. But 10-2? That’s a white-knuckle Sunday in Oxford. Especially if Tennessee, Vanderbilt, or Arch Manning’s Texas is sitting there waiting for a seat at the table.
This is all speculation for now. But the rulebook already allows for it. If Lane Kiffin does make a move, Ole Miss could become the first real test of whether “coach availability” carries the same weight as “quarterback injury.”
And Florida can make that hypothetical a whole lot more real with a win in Oxford on Saturday night.