If we learned anything at all from the final consequential weekend of the college football season (if you paid attention to last week’s musing, you’d know it’s a fool’s errand to try and defend next Saturday’s crop of crap that highlights games being played in frigid baseball stadiums) , it’s that there isn’t all that much difference between the fifth and tenth-best teams in the country, but at least as the College Football Playoff committee classifies them there’s a yuge gap once you get to numbers 11 and 12.
Thanks to an overly generous selection committee perhaps showing some retro love for a program that sent most of its better players and its coach onward and upward to where they produced this year’s numero uno seed and the lone undefeated squad, for the first time in the brief history of this tournament we got not one but two Group of Five participants. If you’re one of the executives still on staff at the lame-duck organization known as TNT Sports, you’re probably anything but thrilled with their inclusivity. The LOS ANGELES TIMES’ nameless and hopefully human told us why:
Dante Moore threw four touchdown passes and ran for another score and No. 5 Oregon beat No. 19 James Madison 51-34 on Saturday night in a College Football Playoff opener.
The Ducks (12-1) advanced to face Texas Tech in a quarterfinal game at the Orange Bowl on Jan. 1. Oregon won a playoff game for the first time since 2014, when the Ducks beat Florida State in the Rose Bowl semifinal before losing to Ohio State. James Madison (12-2) dropped Group of Five teams to 0-4 in CFP games. No. 17 Tulane fell 41-10 at No. 6 Mississippi as well Saturday. It marked Bob Chesney’s final game as James Madison coach — he was named UCLA’s new coach earlier this month.
And that last seemingly AI-generated sentence underscored a reality check that overshadowed the otherwise expected results of the two games ESPN farmed out knowing there were diminishing returns already in play since they were going head-to-head with FOX NFL games involving bitter division rivals. Chesney was just as much scouting out his conference competition for next fall in the same manner than Tulane’s leader was, as YAHOO! Sports’ Nick Bromberg reminded:
The No. 6 Rebels easily beat No. 11 Tulane 41-10 to advance to the second round of the College Football Playoff and set up another rematch in the Sugar Bowl. Ole Miss will face No. 3 Georgia in New Orleans on Jan. 1.
Ole Miss beat Tulane 45-10 in Week 4 of the 2025 season and, well, Saturday was another blowout. Ole Miss scored touchdowns on its first two drives to go up 14-0. Tulane never got the lead within 11 points after that.
Saturday’s game was the final one for Tulane coach Jon Sumrall before he heads to Gainesville to coach the Gators. Sumrall, a former linebacker at Kentucky, was hired as the Gators’ coach at the end of the regular season but stayed with Tulane through the end of the Green Wave’s season.
Which is more rope than was given by the Rebels to their now ex-coach Lane Kiffin, safely watching from his safe haven in Baton Rouge already plotting how the Bayou Bengals will be able to regain relevance in the top-heavy SEC. And if he follows his former team to next week’s Sugar Bowl showdown in nearby N’awlinz he can also get another look at Georgia, who gave Kiffin his sole loss this year via a 43-35 barnburner in October.
If Kiffin requires any more inspiration, he could perhaps draw it from his former and at one point rumored future employer, who on Friday night extracted some revenge of their own against an SEC foe–on the road, no less. AL.com’s Nick Kelly provided the blueprint:
Kane Wommack warned his defense before the game. The Oklahoma offense, which Alabama kept fairly in check in Tuscaloosa, would make some changes for the College Football Playoff game. There are going to be wrinkles.
The defensive coordinator was right. Alabama’s defense didn’t handle them well at first, to the tune of the Sooners jumping out to a 17-point lead in the second quarter. Over the final 2.5 quarters, No. 9 Alabama limited the No. 8 Sooners to seven points en route to a 34-24 victory on Friday at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in the first round of the 12-team playoff.
And if he requires still more, he can take heart at how the SEC leader in the clubhouse when he checked out of Oxford was humbled in front of 104,000 of their disbelieving faithful yesterday afternoon, not that USA TODAY’s Blake Toppmeyer was throwing any roses at anyone who attempted to entertain him:
This one’s for the sickos. This one, this Miami-Texas A&M fistfight, went out to all those who like this sport when it’s magnificent, but downright romanticize it when it’s warty and unpolished, when every yard’s a struggle, when field-goal attempts sail wide right, or into a big lineman’s paw or ricochet off the upright. Doink! The sickos laughed. They loved every second of this 10-3 Miami upset of Texas A&M. Because, this had a dose of everything. Except touchdowns. None of those, until Malachi Toney crossed the goal line with fewer than two minutes remaining.
If you desired unparalleled brilliance and pristine performance, well, I’m afraid this College Football Playoff is too big for you, and you need a playoff that’s more elitist. The sickos will take this unrefined 12-team bracket over tidy elegance, thank you much. This mucky tussle goes into the Sickos Hall of Fame. First-ballot selection. You think Miami cares? That’s a badge of honor. You say ugly, the Hurricanes say defensive masterpiece. It’s on to Ohio State.
Well, not quite. It does earn the ‘Canes a return trip to Texas, where the NCAA had hoped would provide a quasi-home game for the Aggies to have a slightly better shot against the Buckeyes had they been able to blow past Miami as most pundits previously predicted. If nothing else, if they were able to win an actual road game a neutral site should negate some of the air in the room that the otherwise superior Buckeyes will be breathing. I’m sure they would have rather been in Oregon’s bracket, where the Ducks will now head for the first time ever to an Orange Bowl for a date with Texas Tech. Come to think of it, I’d reckon the Red Raiders would rather be in Dallas themselves.
Regardless, they proved they belong, which is more than can be said for the pretenders who were made short work of yesterday evening. The admittedly biased Nick Saban addressed this pointedly on yesterday’s College Football Gameday on ESPN, where he posited “Would you be interested in watching a baseball post-season where the Triple A champion had a slot?”.
But as this musing was being proofread, the ATHLETIC’s usually timely Jason Kirk belatedly dropped his Until Saturday newsletter into my inbox and offered this quite valid counterpoint:
(A)s a shameless G5 apologist, I blame the bouncing ball for the final score looking much worse than it could’ve. Also, since it’s time for the annual G5 pile-on, it’s also time for a quick reminder:
- Five power-conference teams have lost Playoff games by at least as many points as Tulane did yesterday. 2014 Florida State, 2016 Ohio State, 2019 Oklahoma, 2015 Michigan State and 2022 TCU. Those two Big Ten teams even got shut out.
- In last year’s opening round, all four power-conference road teams looked about as overmatched as yesterday’s G5s did. SMU and Tennessee got badly embarrassed. Clemson and Indiana got dominated in multi-score Ls.
Tournament blowouts happen in literally all sports. In a few weeks, see whether anybody calls for the mid-major NFC South to get barred from the 14-team NFL playoffs. In March Madness, notice how many lower seeds get destroyed without any pleas for Congress to award their spots to Texas. When G5 teams are the ones losing, we don’t have to call for someone to rewrite bracket rules every 10 seconds. We can instead take a deep breath and eat a gingerbread cookie.
And since this is the final SUNDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK for 2025, I’d suggest that’s sage advice. Happy munching and see y’all on the appropriate weekday.
Courage…