The debate raged throughout the weekend across college football about Group of 5 teams being included in the 12-team College Football Playoff after disappointing performances by Tulane and James Madison.
ESPN pundit Paul Finebaum piled onto said debate Monday on First Take, opining that teams like the Green Wave and Dukes had no business in the field over power-conference programs.
“Yes, yes, yes!” Finebaum exclaimed when asked if Group of 5 schools should be excluded in the CFP moving forward. “We aren’t sitting here trying to say they looked good, because they did. JMU was down 31, Oregon had already left the game and let them mop up to cover the spread. The games were unwatchable.
“I don’t know many people who want to see these schools in. I am well aware there are arguments like ‘Hey, in the NFL the NFC South winner gets into the playoffs’, but they are professional teams on the same level. JMU and Tulane are the elite of that division, but they’re still not anywhere near on the same page.”
Finebaum went onto say that the competitive aspect of both James Madison’s 51-34 loss to Oregon and Tulane’s 41-10 loss to Ole Miss was proof that the system is broken.
“We could go down the list of the SEC and probably find quite a few schools that could beat both with one hand behind their backs,” Finebaum said. “It is just an absolute hypocrisy to have to deal with this every year. This year, there shouldn’t have been two in but the ACC was asleep at the wheel with their tiebreak system.
“I don’t want to be the Grinch who stole Christmas but get these schools and these conferences out of my way. I want to see the best 12, 16 teams. I don’t want to see them if there are 28.”
"Yes, yes, yes!" @finebaum on if G5 teams should be left out of the CFP going forward pic.twitter.com/R9my1AzHu8
— First Take (@FirstTake) December 22, 2025Paul Finebaum says Group-of-5 teams should be left out of CFP following JMU, Tulane losses Saturday Down South.
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