Tulane and James Madison just proved why sub-Power 4 teams need their own playoff

Jason Jones

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Tulane and James Madison just proved why sub-Power 4 teams need their own playoff image

One basic concept that most human beings understand before reaching adulthood is “life isn’t fair”. It’s time to accept that college football as an entity has reached adulthood. They make grown up money and are held to grown up standards. Fairness, within this context, is a concept for children. It’s important to be fair when football players are at the youth level when they are learning the right way to play the game.

Something has been lost in the evolution from pre-BCS to BCS to Playoff system. College football players are 18–23-year-olds, typically. In what aspect of American culture is an 18–23-year-old not considered an adult? When those adults can earn millions of dollars, there is no reason to continue to treat them like they are kids. Which is where the fairness argument comes from.

Adults that watch the game, cover the game and discuss the game traditionally have chosen to view college football players and by the extension the teams as “amateurs” that need to be protected. Once NIL was approved, no college football player should have been viewed as an amateur. They never should’ve been viewed as kids.

The fairness argument applied to teams outside the Power 4 is born of the idea that these players are amateurs and/or kids. The only logical reason that the playoff criteria does not specify “of the Power 4 conferences” is because it would be viewed as unfair to lower-level programs.

College football is not an amateur sport anymore and cannot be viewed that way. These games are played in 60,000-125,000-seat cathedrals. More money passes through the top Power 4 programs than some First World countries. College football is big business. Over 20 individual football players make more than $2M per year. College football has become professional football with a class schedule.

Stewards of the game believe the playoff should be Power 4 specific

Just like any other professional sport, the minor leagues or developmental leagues are not permitted to participate in the professional championship crowing process. The Westchester Knicks will never earn a spot in the NBA Playoffs. Why might you ask? It's not the same. Different revenue, different competition, different struggles, different expectations, a different talent pool, everything that matters is different.

Nick Saban recently made a similar analogy. AAA baseball teams don’t get a spot in the Major League Baseball playoffs. Everything about the two levels is different. As much as putting James Madison or Tulane in is great for those programs, it robs the viewers of two quality opponents all in the name of fairness.

Josh Pate of the Josh Pate College Football show had a similar take. Both agreeing that there is no good reason that isn’t ‘fairness’ to suggest a sub-Power 4 team should ever be in the college football playoff.

For Pate, via the Bussin' with the Boys podcast, it's not about if those teams have the ability to play a competitive playoff game or even win. It's about not facing the same level of challenges. Pate claims the Group of Five and the Power 4 don’t even play the same sport.

Former college football head coach and current analyst Urban Meyer also chimed in on the competition level and even provided a possible solution. Meyer appeared on the Triple Option Podcast and shared his thoughts.

"I would mandate that a James Madison, or a non-Power four [team], you have to play three programs in the top 50 or you can't... Be considered [for the Playoff]." Meyer said. “You're telling the Fighting Irish have to sit home and James Madison's going?" Asked Meyer. "The better team is supposed to be in the game."

There it is. The point of any championship crowing process is to put the best teams against each other. For college football, the 12 best teams in the country. However, if James Madison or Tulane don't play a schedule of competition that is even in the neighborhood of Georgia, Oklahoma, Miami or Oregon, they don’t belong in the playoff.

A Cinderella champion will never happen in college football

The fact of the matter is the college football playoff and the NCAA tournament are not the same. One has 68 teams and the other has 12. If the college football playoff committee decides to expand to something excessive like a 32-team field, then we can reintroduce this conversation.

Otherwise, proponents of the G5 inclusion are optimistic about and waiting for something that will never happen. Exciting late game antics that push a Cinderella over a Blue Blood. Multiple times leading to a national championship.

At its peak, the NCAA tournament was the greatest process to crown a champion in all of sports. Along the way fans have seen plenty of late second buzzer beaters, unprecedented upsets and even two champions that no one predicted would cut down the nets. College basketball allows for that. The nature of the game provides opportunities for David to beat Goliath. It’s just not realistic in football.

Thinking in the abstract makes this even easier to grasp. What are the chances Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, or Texas could feasibly win a national title in the next ten years? Pretty decent chance, especially in the NIL era. What about BYU, Texas A&M, Miami or Texas Tech? Also, not outside the realm of possibility in the new era.

Now, what are the realistic chances a Tulane, James Madison, North Texas or Western Michigan could be an Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, Miami, and Oregon en route to a National Championship? The answer is virtually zero.

The solution is to give non-Power 4 teams their own playoff

The answer to this quandary is not to simply exclude everyone who isn’t a Power 4 team. The answer is to perfect the college football playoff process as a default, “Power 4 Playoff”. Then, create a separate playoff system that would include all of the Group of Five schools as well as HBCUs, Big Sky, CAA, Ivy Leagues, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Patriot League, and everyone else that would fall under “not the Power 4”, but still Division 1.

This concept would create two very different college football playoff options. NIL, the transfer portal and revenue should create a dynamic where there is no significant benefit in Power 4 schools ever playing anyone else who isn’t also a Power 4 school. The FCS/Group of Five playoff system could include more teams, start earlier, end later, run weekday games, revitalize forgotten bowl games, and of course generate huge paydays for those teams.

The FCS + G5 variation could provide an NCAA Tournament style concept. A wider range of teams, spanning every part of the country, where a Cinderella story might be plausible. The FCS tournament might even become the more ‘entertaining’ of the two playoff systems. While the Power 4 playoff would remain the system that crowns the best team in all of college football.

It’s not fair. It’s not nice. It’s not welcoming to all levels, but that is the point. It shouldn’t be. The college football playoff should be about putting the best 12 teams against each other. Not the ten best and two throw ins because we want to be nice and fair. Now that Tulane and James Madison have proven what most of us already knew, it’s time to have a real conversation about what the college football playoff is supposed to be. The best twelve teams fighting for the top trophy in the sport.

Tulane and James Madison lost their respective games by a combined -48 points. The analytics won't help the argument either. Tulane and James Madison were within 10% of their Power 4 opponents' rushing and passing numbers. Time of possession was similar. Most of the team stats were not lopsided. However, they still lost to two very worthy Power 4 teams by almost 50 points. The Group of Five experiment needs to end. 

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Staff Writer