College Football's Group of 5 is Under Attack, We Cannot Afford to Get Rid of Automatic Playoff Bids

There's a lot of frustrating things about college football. There's lot of stuff I let myself get mad about in the moment, before I inevitably come to the realization that it's not a big deal. Because I accept that there's no one right answer to most questions. That goes for pretty much everything in life. If there are 2 sides to a debate, the answer is almost certainly somewhere in the middle. The SEC probably isn't as dominant as their sycophants say they are. But an SEC win over a 3-win South Carolina is also better than a Big Ten win over a 3-win Rutgers. Nothing is ever as extreme as either side of an argument would have you believe.

That being said, if we do away with automatic bids for the college football playoff, it will ruin the sport forever and I will kill myself. Just kidding. But it will be the final nail in the coffin for the Group of 5. Well... maybe not the final nail. The final nail will be the day we get the Group of 5 Playoff. But if we get rid of automatic bids, within 10 years (probably sooner), the Group of 5 will cease to exist as a part of D1 FBS College Football as we know it. 

To respond to Brandon's question, we have automatic bids because that's how every playoff works across all college sports. Years ago, college football agreed to a 12-team playoff, with auto bids for the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, and ONE bid for the best team amongst the Group of 5 conferences. Nobody batted an eye at the decision. Because it was common sense. It makes for a playoff that favors the best teams, and still serves as a representation of the entire sport.

As currently set up, the college football playoff will typically feature 1 or 2 teams (roughly 10-15% of the playoff) who don't really have a shot at winning the National Championship. But they'll get in via auto bid as a representative of their conference. Which honestly makes for a much smaller percentage of playoff teams who "can't win" than most college sports allow. In college basketball, it's closer to 30%. 

College football already favors the big guys SIGNIFICANTLY more so than other sports. The G5 asks for so little. All they want is 1 spot between 5 conferences. And if you lay it all out, nothing about the likes of Virginia and Tulane sneaking into the playoff this year is crazy at all. There are 12 spots available. So this year, instead of getting teams ranked 1-12, we'll most likely end up with teams ranked 1-10, and auto bids ranked around #17 and #20. If you would have presented that scenario to anybody 10 years ago, they would have told you it was exceedingly fair. 

But look at the conversation that's happening now. I love the Unnecessary Roughness guys (and Kayce). I've legitimately listened to every one of their episodes since the show started. But this conversation made me want to take a baseball bat to my computer.

Blutman made a perfectly fine point about Ole Miss struggling with Washington State (which I don't really think he was joking about). If Ole Miss struggles with Washington State, why couldn't they struggle with a markedly better team like JMU or North Texas? 

"BUT OLE MISS ALREADY WHOOPED TULANE!!! THAT PROVES EVERYTHING!!!"

No it doesn't, man. That's one game. I know you guys have been watching sports your whole life. You know that's not how sports work. Not every matchup between two teams is the same. Upsets do happen in college football. I know you saw Notre Dame (who made the National Championship) lose to Northern Illinois last season.

Only us college football fans are so entitled to believe we deserve playoff matchups that we think will be most entertaining, at the expense of a true playoff that includes the entire sport. If the G5 gets blown out in the first round every year for the next 10 years, then fine. Let's cut the G5 out. But it hasn't even been 2 years yet. We already changed the playoff format after 1. Can we take a step back for one second and see how this current system works for more than a single year before we go blowing it all up? Is nobody interested in seeing how things play out over the course of a few seasons? 

It's almost like people are in a rush to kick the G5 out of the playoff before they have a chance to pull off an upset, and prove to the world that the drama of the occasional upset is worth saving a spot for. And the fucked up thing is, if Tulane does pull off an upset this playoff, the G5 will probably be safe for the next 5 years. Maybe more. But if they get blown out, the G5 might never see a playoff again. That's how short-sighted we are as fans. And if fans are clamoring for more SEC & Big Ten teams in the playoffs, college football will probably oblige. Because bigger brands equals bigger money. At the end of the day, that is the only thing the decision makers care about. Fans pounding the table demanding a playoff spot for a 9-3 Texas team is music to their ears. 

But regardless of what happens, college football will be revisiting their playoff format after this season. It could go one of a million ways. The best thing for the G5 would be expansion to at least 16 teams. That should buy them another 1-2 years before Paul Finebaum throws a tantrum over 9-3 Auburn losing the final spot to a 2-loss Mountain West team. But I fear the NCAA is going to point to a sample size of 2 years and say, "Look! These small schools will NEVER be able to compete! It's clearly a waste of time!".

They'll get rid of automatic bids altogether. And a few years down the line, if no G5 team passes the National Championship Contender Eye Test, it's Group of 5 Playoff time. That'll be all she wrote. Nobody will care about the G5 again. People will tell you that they'd love to see Tulane and James Madison play in a G5 Championship. But we've had D2 and D3 playoffs for years, and nobody gives a shit about those. If you think a Group of 5 playoff will get any more respect than them, I've got a bridge to sell you. 

With the current system, nobody important is getting left out. Nobody is getting cheated. The best team is still going to win the National Championship. If anything, I'd argue the current system only further ensures the best team wins. Why should we give a hot team like Texas who lost to Florida, and squeaked by Kentucky in OT, a shot at a title run? They didn't earn it. Isn't every game mattering the beauty of college football's regular season? Wasn't that the #1 complaint about moving to a 12-team playoff in the first place? Is the Big Ten & SEC getting a combined 7-8 teams in the playoffs (plus Notre Dame) every year really not enough for us?

I don't know, man. I'm rambling at this point. I just think our current playoff system is exceptionally fair to everyone. Nobody who truly deserves a shot at the national championship is being snubbed. I'm not worried about the ACC. They'll fix their dumbass tiebreaker. But I think the Group of 5 is such an integral part of college football, and I'm afraid we're going down a road where they'll soon be separated for good. The repercussions of continuing to phase them out could be so much worse than suffering through the occasional round one blowout. And if our only argument against that is that we want a little more "guaranteed" entertainment early in the playoffs… I think that's a pretty weak ass reason to do it.