SMQ: Why Florida State vs Alabama football was the most meaningless game of 2017

Florida State and Alabama football played the first-ever meeting between No. 1 and No. 3 in a season opener. Here is why the game was actually meaningless.

There was tons of hype leading up to the showdown between No. 1 Alabama and No. 3 Florida State on Saturday evening in Atlanta. The showdown between the Seminoles and Crimson Tide matched the top team and the third team in the preseason AP poll for the first time in college football history.  But in the end, let’s face reality. This game is going to mean next to nothing in the big picture of the college football season.

Despite all the rhetoric about how the College Football Playoff would usher in an era of high-ranked teams squaring off against one another throughout the season, this is the first matchup of top-10 teams from the preseason AP Poll since the last year of the BCS era. The combination of the novelty factor and the high rank of both teams means that the Seminoles won’t drop far in the rankings after the defeat.

Ultimately, nothing changed for either the victorious defending SEC champions or the vanquished ACC favorites after this non-conference showdown. Both teams will remain in the hunt for one of the four College Football Playoff spots. And the Seminoles are not about to be eliminated from the Playoff race by a quality defeat.

Sure, it was fun to watch two of the top teams in the country go toe to toe for 60 minutes to kick off the new season. But by December, the game will have next to no impact on which teams play for the national title. To demonstrate why Alabama versus Florida State is so meaningless, let’s look back at the past five games between top-10 schools that took place in recent seasons in this week’s Sunday Morning Quarterback.