The discussion around the College Football Playoff format is only going to get more intense after Saturday’s first-round games. Especially after James Madison and Tulane did not put up much resistance against heavily favored teams, Oregon and Ole Miss.
After Tulane
was easily tossed aside by Ole Miss, James Madison was thoroughly dominated at Oregon, 51-34, sending the Ducks on to the Orange Bowl, where they will play Texas Tech.
That is not a surprise. That is what everybody in college football outside of James Madison expected to come out of Saturday’s game. That is why it will not necessarily be the topic of discussion.
The topic will be what comes next for the College Football Playoff format and the future of Group of Five teams in it.
James Madison, Tulane did not help the Group of Five case
Aside from the inclusion of Alabama in this year’s field, the most controversial aspect of this year’s field was the fact that two Group of Five teams — Tulane and James Madison — were cut. That was primarily due to the ACC and its conference tiebreakers keeping Miami out of the conference championship game and shutting out the ACC conference champion (Duke). That left Tulane and James Madison as two of the five highest-ranked conference champions and put them in the field.
There was a fear that it would result in ugly games, blowouts and non-competitive games that could have been avoided with better teams in the field.
The blowouts are exactly what happened as neither Tulane or James Madison was able to compete.
Will this lead to changes for next year’s format?
We have already seen changes with the field continuing to increase, and the seeding changing this season.
Given the backlash to having two Group of Five teams in the field, as well as the manner in which they lost, the discussion is probably only going to get more intense over the next year.
Will the field get expanded again?
Will Group of Five teams be pushed out of the field? And does college football really want to create a situation where half of the teams at the highest level know they have zero chance to compete for a championship? Is that sort of thing actually healthy for a sport? Or are some early-round blowouts something that just has to be dealt with?
It’s not like power conference teams have not also been blown out in postseason games over the years.
Whatever happens in the future, James Madison and Tulane had a chance to make a big statement for the little guys in college football. The only thing they did was confirm the beliefs of people who said they probably did not belong.
