Another year, another set of complaints about the College Football Playoff (CFP).
Although Alabama's exclusion from last year's inaugural 12-team playoff drew some complaints, mostly from in and around the Tuscaloosa area, most criticisms of the 2024 edition had to do with the likes of Boise State and Arizona State receiving first-round byes thanks to their respective conference championships. The rules were immediately changed after the season as a result.
Now, the complaints center around the snubbing of Notre Dame, which, while a loser of the head-to-head matchup with Miami, had been ahead of the Hurricanes for weeks of the CFP rankings, including the penultimate rankings. Although many pointed out the hypocrisy of the Hurricanes being 12th, two spots behind Notre Dame, the rankings only got more confusing one week later, when the committee slid Miami to 10th and Notre Dame down to 11th, locking the Irish out of the playoff.
But the big issue to some is not that Miami leapfrogged Notre Dame; it's that American champion Tulane and Sun Belt champion James Madison, ranked 20th and 24th, respectively, got in over the likes of Notre Dame, BYU, Texas, and Vanderbilt because of a rule guaranteeing a spot in the playoff to the five highest-ranked conference champions. JMU, in particular, earned a spot when then-No. 17 Virginia lost in the ACC Championship Game to unranked, 7-5 Duke.
The playoff bids would appear to be feel-good stories for the smaller, lesser-known programs, but according to FOX color commentator Joel Klatt, some are ready to stop any Cinderella stories from happening in college football.
“There was more sentiment than I've ever heard before that people are unhappy with — possibly in favor of — eliminating the group-of-five or group-of-six carve-out in the College Football Playoff,” Klatt said on his podcast. “There was a lot of sentiment like, ‘Hey, what are we doing?’ And I know I give that sentiment, but now we’re giving two spots. And candidly, it’s a spot that’s not going to win the national championship.
“…There’s gotta be a better way. And part of the better way is probably playing a group-of-five national championship, which I think is better for them because I don’t think they’re playing on equal footing. I’ve talked about that here on this show, but I was shocked at the amount of support that there was in Las Vegas for that sentiment.”
The issue, though, and it is one that Klatt mentioned, is that by locking out the non-power-conference teams, it opens the CFP up to litigation, specifically related to antitrust laws. Even though the divide between the haves and have-nots is evident in college football, the 130-plus FBS teams are technically all on the same playing field, and if the CFP were to deny teams from smaller, less-respected conferences explicitly, it would almost certainly result in a highly contentious, expensive, and potentially cataclysmic lawsuit.
Nonetheless, it would not be surprising if there are further changes to the playoff system after this season. Specifically, with it being revealed that independent Notre Dame will be guaranteed a spot if it is ranked in the top 12 at the end of the season, it would seem likely that conferences will get a similar deal, or the conference champion guarantee will be otherwise altered so as not to give any official preferential treatment to specific teams or leagues.
The 2025-26 CFP will begin on Dec. 19, when No. 8 Oklahoma hosts No. 9 Alabama in a first-round game.
