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Alabama's contentious presence in the College Football Playoff has garnered significant criticism for the Crimson Tide.
A map produced by BetOnline.ag by collecting and utilizing geotagged data from X (formerly known as Twitter) since the release of the final CFP rankings 25 days ago, reveals that Alabama is widely regarded as the most disliked among the top four teams across the United States.
The study tracked negative sentiment CFP tweets to find the most disliked team in each state. For example, tweets talking about the CFP or that used the hashtag "#CFP" and also included statements like "I hate Alabama," "Alabama sucks," "Alabama is overrated," etc. were used.
The website then repeated that for each team. More than 500,000 tweets total were analyzed to produce the state-by-state results, which can be found below.
As you can see from the map, it's clear who the most "hated" team is across the nation. This isn't surprising as there has been a lot of controversy about whether or not Alabama deserved a spot in the playoff over undefeated Florida State.
Michigan was the top pick in several Big Ten states, as well as in Alabama, while Washington and Texas only got a collective handful of total votes from rival states.
The state breakdown is as follows:
Washington: 2 (New Mexico, Oregon)
Texas: 3 (Alaska, Oklahoma, Washington)
Michigan: 6 (Alabama, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin)
Alabama: 39 (all other states)
Speaking of FSU's alleged "snub," former Seminoles quarterback Danny Kanell had some interesting things to say about his alma mater missing the CFP, which teams he thinks are the best in the country (spoiler…none are FSU!) and NIL/transfer portal.
Check out the Q&A here:
BetOnline.ag: Putting any bias aside, in your expert opinion, do you think Florida State should have been included in the CFP Playoffs?
Kanell: I think the committee got it wrong. We have never seen an undefeated Power 5 conference champion left out of the playoffs. The debate should have been between the two one-loss teams. The committee instead chose to use the Jordan Travis injury as the reason to leave out the Seminoles, but that completely diminishes everything I've been taught about team sports my entire life. FSU deserved an invite to the CFP.
BetOnline.ag: Who do you think are the best four teams in college football right now? Not who "deserves" to be in the playoffs, but the best teams in terms of talent and success.
Kanell: The four most talented teams in the country are Georgia, Alabama, Michigan and Ohio State. Their rosters have more 4- and 5-star players than anyone else in the country. They would all be favored versus any other team in the country. But if we went by this metric… Why even play the regular season?
BetOnline.ag: NIL and the transfer portal have turned the college football landscape upside down. Short-term and long-term pros and cons can be argued without a doubt, but if you had to pick a side, are NIL and transfer portal good or bad for NCAA football?
Kanell: The combination of NIL and freedom to switch schools without penalty via the transfer portal has been awful for college football. It’s impossible for coaches to manage rosters, fans feel deserted when their favorite player leaves for the bigger payday and the smaller schools have zero chance to compete with the biggest schools, which can outspend them for the best players in the country. I am all for the players making some money. But without any structure or regulation this has become the wild west. Sure, the players can make the big dollars but you're also seeing players getting "cut" from rosters to make room for new players. There is a ton of collateral damage that is not being discussed or addressed right now.
