The 12-team Playoff era opened with a contender losing. What does that mean this early on?

Losing its season opener in Ireland to Georgia Tech came with plenty of disappointment and embarrassment for 10th-ranked Florida State.

After all, with an ongoing legal battle against their conference and a fan base that was still booing and blaming ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit for December’s College Football Playoff snub up until Saturday’s kickoff, the Seminoles are getting roasted on social media after losing to the double-digit underdog Yellow Jackets.

Some are calling FSU the sport’s biggest whiners, and taking great joy in the Yellow Jackets’ win. Even Herbstreit couldn’t contain himself from commenting following FSU’s loss.

The Seminoles certainly have a lot to work on – we’ll get to that in a bit – but college football fans should know it’s possible to rebound from a season-opening loss and win the national championship.

It hasn’t happened in the modern Playoff era (since 2014), but it did happen last in 1983 with Howard Schnellenberger’s Miami Hurricanes. They lost 28-3 in Gainesville against rival Florida in their first game and then ran the table, beating top-ranked Nebraska to win the national championship in the Orange Bowl.

Miami got some help from others in the polls along the way, but Florida State doesn’t need to worry about silly polls anymore. The Seminoles can win their way into the postseason in this new 12-team Playoff era, claiming the ACC title or earning an at-large bid.

Heck, the 2002 Seminoles would have made the 12-team field after they finished 9-4 on their way to winning the ACC championship. And in an ironic twist, it may end up being easier for FSU to make the Playoff this year with an immediate loss in Week 0 than it was last year when the Seminoles went 13-0 through the ACC Championship Game and still found themselves on the outside looking in.

Last season, four teams with two regular-season losses would’ve made the Playoff field as at-large bids: Oregon, Missouri, Penn State and Ole Miss. In 2022, eight teams with more than one loss would’ve made the field, including 10-3 Kansas State and 10-3 Utah.

If you go back to 1998, 30 teams with three losses would’ve made it in a 12-team format.

There’s hope for everyone in college football these days – even if you are slow out of the gate like Mike Norvell’s team was Saturday. Florida State, however, has a lot to work on if it wants to get back to Charlotte for the conference championship … in every area.

Offensively, FSU rushed for just 98 yards against a Georgia Tech team that finished with the nation’s No. 131 rushing defense a season ago … out of 133 FBS teams. Yes, the Yellow Jackets hired a new defensive coordinator this offseason in Tyler Santucci, but it was jarring to watch the Seminoles run for 66 yards in the first quarter, then just 32 combined in the final three quarters.

FSU clearly missed its receiving corps from 2023, and while quarterback DJ Uiagalelei had two critical fourth-down completions during crunchtime in the fourth quarter – a 20-yard pass up the middle on fourth-and-7 and a 19-yarder on fourth-and-8 – FSU’s staff appeared hesitant to fully cut him loose. He rushed for just 7 yards on six carries, despite his 6-foot-4, 252-pound frame making him one of the most impactful running quarterbacks in the league.

As for FSU’s defense, the Seminoles couldn’t stand up to Georgia Tech’s experienced offensive line, despite entering the season with one of the most hyped defensive lines in the league. The Yellow Jackets rushed for 190 yards, averaging 5.3 yards per carry. FSU never sacked quarterback Haynes King.

The good news for FSU is that the Seminoles have time to clean this up. FSU plays Boston College on Labor Day and then faces Memphis, Cal and SMU before hosting Clemson on Oct. 5.

Georgia Tech may be a better team than it was given credit for during the preseason. If there’s a sleeper team in the ACC to make some noise in the conference race, it just might be Brent Key’s gritty, veteran group.

With the ACC doing away with divisions and expanding to 17 teams with the addition of Stanford, Cal and SMU, Florida State’s path to reaching the conference title game is more complicated than it used to be.

When the Yellow Jackets played in the Coastal Division and the Seminoles played in the Atlantic Division, Georgia Tech couldn’t stand in FSU’s way of a trip to Charlotte. It can now. The programs with the two best winning percentages in conference play will meet the first weekend in December, but in the event of a two-team tie for the second-best winning percentage, the first tiebreaker is head-to-head competition. The next tiebreaker – in the event of a multi-team tie – is winning percentage against common opponents. But that’s a math problem for December.

What the ACC needs more than anything is to perform well against the SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 to help its reputation when arguments about at-large bids commence.

The ACC goes head-to-head with the SEC 11 times, including several early marquee games headlined by Georgia-Clemson, Miami-Florida and Tennessee–NC State. Last year, the ACC went 7-5 against the SEC (its first winning season against the SEC since 2016). The ACC also plays against the Big Ten and Big 12 five times each.

For now, the league – and FSU – can only wait to see how things shake out. Norvell has a tall order on his hands, while the Yellow Jackets have no shortage of momentum in Key’s second year. But the new Playoff won’t count out the Noles. … Yet.