Ridiculous Reasoning Keeps Austin Peay out of FCS Playoffs

Excuse me for being a fan of magical stories.

The Austin Peay Governors experienced a spectacular program turnaround this season under head coach Will Healy.

Not even the Cleveland Browns could match this program's stretch of misery: 29 consecutive losses.

That is, until the 2017 season.

Under Coach Healy, a program that had completely forgotten what winning was traversed across a 12-game schedule to an 8-4 record and to the edge of the 2017 NCAA Division I FCS Playoffs.

But apparently, selection committees have no time for good stories.

The FCS Selection Committee went with Nicholls State and South Dakota instead, leaving the Governors on the outside looking in as the top team to not make the playoffs.

Sometimes, the clock just strikes midnight. It's life. It's sports. It happens.

But what doesn't happen often is that a team is penalized for playing "tougher" opponents. Austin Peay played just one nonconference game against an FCS foe. It played three nonconference games against FBS programs.

Cincinnati, Miami (OH) and UCF. Three FBS teams that are reasonably better than any FCS program Austin Peay could fit on its schedule this season. Oh, and Austin Peay lost by only 20 points to the FCS Playoffs No. 3-seed: the Jacksonville State Gamecocks.

That looks like a tough resume to me, and when you tack that on with eight wins and a 7-1 Ohio Valley Conference record, you have a playoff-worthy team.

Or so you'd think.

Selection committees have tough jobs. But if your committee is using that jumbled lack-of-reasoning as logic, then I'm sorry, you're just wrong.

Austin Peay deserved better. The Governors deserve to keep playing. But not everyone's a fan of storybook endings.