Michael Alford defends moving Florida State-Georgia to neutral site, blames CFP

Earlier this week, Florida State and Georgia announced their upcoming home-and-home series is off as they likely shift to one game at a neutral site. Details are still in the works, but FSU athletics director Michael Alford cited a number of factors in defense of the decision, including the College Football Playoff.

Alford said the CFP and conference scheduling played the biggest roles in the move from a home-and-home to a single neutral-site matchup. He noted that Florida State has Florida on its schedule every year while Georgia takes on Georgia Tech during rivalry week, meaning both programs have power conference opponents in addition to their nine-game league schedules.

As a result, Alford spoke with Georgia AD Josh Brooks about the two schools’ series. The CFP, in particular, was a point of emphasis. Alford cited last year’s season-opening Ohio State vs. Texas game in his comments because the Longhorns missed the 12-team bracket. He then alluded to FSU’s snub from the CFP in 2023 when it was a four-team field to further support his argument.

“We also looked at, small data, that we only have one season under this new format in the CFP,” Alford said on Gramlich & Mac Lain. “But how is the committee going to judge these non-conference games? When they when they sit in the room, how are they gonna look at them? I’ll tell you, we think Texas-Ohio State hurt Texas. Personally, I do. When they sat in that room, they didn’t get any credit for playing a tough game opening the season on the road. … So do you go play 11 Power Fours and play between the hedges or come to Doak Campbell, lose a tight game? How does the committee fit it?

“Personally, and I’m not speaking for Josh, I never – as you know – want to put it in the committee’s hands. I have my reasons. … So that was one thing we looked at.”

Michael Alford: ‘We’re still going to play’

In addition to scheduling and the CFP, Michael Alford pointed to the “changing environment of television” as a reason for the move. The comments came after a landmark deal between Duke basketball and Amazon’s Prime Video to air three neutral-site games, although the Big Ten is disputing one of those matchups. As Ross Dellenger detailed, the agreement has college sports administrators talking.

That said, Alford acknowledged the meaning of taking a game away from Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee and a potential trip to Sanford Stadium in Athens. But he confirmed that seven cities are expressing interest in a Florida State-Georgia game after the announcement.

“I hate taking the game away from Doak Campbell,” Alford said. “I think our fans would have loved to have gone between the edges. But having our schedule, adding a nice game, having Georgia on there, as well, just created difficulty for our program, looking at it with our goals of how we want to get into the CFP and into that tournament. So a lot of factors.

“We’re still going to play. We have seven cities right now that have reached out with aggressive proposals for us to come look at and play a neutral-site game in ’28, Week 0 of ’28. Both schools want to play each other. So two seasons of 11 [Power Four] games? Or can we live with, for our fan base, of playing each other and keep this great game alive and just play one game in a neutral site and what does that do, revenue-wise? … There were just a lot of factors going into that.”