Joel Klatt Wants Higher Bar for Group of 5 Teams in CFP: 'They Were Overmatched'

The first two games in the first round of the 2025 College Football Playoff were pretty competitive. The final two games, however, were not.

For FOX Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt, No. 6 Ole Miss' 45-10 drubbing of No. 11 Tulane and No. 5 Oregon's decisive 51-34 victory over No. 12 James Madison put a damper on what should've been an exciting weekend for the sport. With Tulane and James Madison losing in the fashion they did, Klatt believes the playoff format needs to be reconsidered. 

"It was a tough day for the Group of 5,"  Klatt said. "It was a tough day for the creators of this playoff. It was a tough day for the leaders of college football. All of us sat there and were like, ‘How do you continue to screw up what is so obviously an easy fix?’ I think that this playoff is not built right. 

"I got into all sorts of hot water this week when I said, ‘In college football, we don’t want Cinderellas.' I'm right. Did you watch the last two games of the first round? Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Texas and BYU were just sitting at home watching Tulane and JMU play in games in which they were overmatched. That's not cool."

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In the current iteration of the 12-team CFP, the five highest-ranked conference champions receive an automatic berth. In the vast majority of other seasons, the winners of the Power 4 conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC) and the highest-ranked Group of 5 champ would receive those automatic bids.

This year's field saw 8-5 Duke throw a wrench into things by winning the ACC. Duke wasn't ranked in the final CFP poll, while No. 20 Tulane (AAC champion) and No. 24 James Madison (Sun Belt champion) were ranked higher, putting them in the playoff. But, it's worth noting there were noticeable flaws with both teams.

Tulane went 11-2, with one of its losses coming in a 35-point blowout to Ole Miss earlier in the season. James Madison, meanwhile, went 12-1 before the CFP, but didn't beat a power conference team all season long. 

With that rule in place, Tulane and JMU made the CFP over Notre Dame and BYU, who were the 11th and 12th-ranked teams, respectively, in the final CFP poll. Both teams finished with similar records as Tulane and JMU (Notre Dame: 10-2, BYU: 11-2), with each picking up wins over a team ranked in the top 16 of the final poll. 

While Notre Dame and BYU had better resumes ahead of the CFP, Klatt didn't want to blame the Group of 5 teams for the losses. Rather, he continued to point at the structure of the CFP field as the biggest issue.

"They don't need our charity. They don't need our pity," Klatt said. "JMU and Tulane, unfortunately, are now going to be thought of as those teams that got thrown out there in the College Football Playoff. It's not their fault. It's the fault of the people who built this structure, obviously. 

"JMU is a good football team for what they are — competing in the Sun Belt, competing for a championship in the Sun Belt, which they won. Same for Tulane, to compete in the American, which they won. That doesn't mean they can go and beat Ole Miss on the road and beat Oregon on the road."

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What happened with the two Group of 5 teams this year was slightly different than what occurred last season. Boise State was ranked ninth in the final CFP poll in 2024 after getting a top-25 win and nearly beating Oregon on the road en route to securing a playoff bid. Boise State was able to hang around with Penn State in the quarterfinals as well, with the Nittany Lions only securing an insurmountable lead late in that game. 

Klatt, though, thinks that teams like Boise State might be the anomaly moving forward when it comes to Group of 5 teams.

"They deserve to play in awesome close games, semifinals and championships. Not go up to Oregon and get their doors blown off," Klatt said. "Credit to [James Madison], because they kept playing hard and they scored a few times and played pretty well in the second half. That's awesome. Guess why? Because that's a proud and good football team for what they are. 

"The Group of 5 and Power 4 are growing vastly apart. This is not the old days [when] Boise State was like, ‘Oh, they could go and beat anybody on any given day.’ That's not what we have anymore. Since the transfer portal opened, what we have are the haves and have-nots. Those schools and that level of football are being raided."

So, with that in mind, Klatt has a clear solution as to what should be done moving forward to avoid similar first-round blowouts: Either have a playoff for the Group of 5 teams, or set a higher standard for them to make the CFP.

"Go play your own playoff, which could be awesome, and it could be awesome for them," Klatt said. "If that's not what the solution is, then we need a prerequisite in order to get into the College Football Playoff. Just like the Olympics. Did you know that you've got to run an Olympic time before you can then be in the trials and qualify through your country to go and be in the Olympic Games? Like in track and field?

"Well, we need this in college football. We had the 20th and 24th-ranked teams in the country. If you want to keep access for the Group of 5 in this playoff, then just say if you win your championship and you're in the top 15, then you can go play in the College Football Playoff. But until then, you just get what we got to this weekend. And I didn't think that was fair for Tulane or JMU." 

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