Yeah, Tulane and JMU didn't do much to prove that G5 schools belong in this playoff. I think it was a good idea before NIL and the portal, but let's be real here...G5 schools can't keep up with P4 schools when it comes to all that NIL money. And I'm a fan of G5 football. I still maintain that P4 and G5 should be separated by division - each with their own NC. Maybe someday...
To be fair, some of the P4 schools that were 9-12 seeds last year got their asses kicked too. The #1 seed last year got crushed too. The #11 and #12 seeds should be losing to the #5 and #6 seeds so not sure that tells us too much as of yet. And the whole idea of these teams is they mostly lose, but occasionally can pull off miracles. That's what makes March Madness fun. Does the 6th best team in a conference really have some kind of argument that they need an opportunity to compete for a national championship?
But why? The playoff is not meant to be the 12 best teams. It's meant to be 5 automatic qualifiers and the next 7 best wildcard teams. You can win your conference or be one of the 7 best teams in the country not good enough to win their conference. Every team in the country has a shot to make it. Why is that so problematic? In March Madness, there are 68 teams - I think 30-40ish of them are wildcards and 30-40ish are automatic bids, so several "undeserving teams" get in and the 40-60th best teams often don't. Does anyone have a problem with that? Right now, the controversy is over the 6th-9th best wildcard teams. If you go to simply the top 12 teams, then it's just going to create a new controversy between 11-14. If you go to 16, it'll be the same with 17, etc. The people who are just barely left out will complain no matter what. But a few years ago, no one remotely thought that the 12th best team in the country should have any sort of right to a national championship.
Crazy that the 2 most fun Bowl Games so far were the first one and the one (the only one) tonight. South Carolina State vs Prairie View: SCSU 40-38, 4OT Cal vs Hawaii: 35-31 Warriors, Cal was up 21-0 in the 2Q (4Q possessions went H TD, C FG, H TD, C TD, H TD, Cal end of game) There's usually a lot more fun in the random bowl games than this. And yes, I know why things may be changing.
