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Danny Kanell blasts CFP format for potentially allowing G5 teams like Tulane, James Madison in field

by: Alex Byington16 hours ago_AlexByington

The chaos of the regular season carried over into Championship Weekend, leaving the College Football Playoff selection committee facing a potential doomsday scenario on Selection Sunday. As the 12-member CFP committee debates the CFP’s 12-team Playoff field this morning in Grapevine, Texas, there are effectively three bids still up for grabs — one of those being the fifth and final conference champion.

Does the CFP committee keep unranked ACC champion Duke (8-5, 6-2 ACC), which upset No. 17 Virginia on Saturday night in Charlotte, completely out of the 12-team field in favor of a second Group of Five champion — Sun Belt winner James Madison (12-1, 8-0 Sun Belt), which was ranked No. 25 last week? The CFP protocol only dictates the five highest-ranked conference champions make the field, with the expectation that one of those bids includes a Group of Five champion.

Amid all the consternation about SEC runner-up Alabama and idle Notre Dame and Miami — which were ranked No. 9, 10 and 12, respectively, in the CFP’s penultimate rankings last Tuesday — being in the mix for the Playoff’s final two at-large bids, CBS Sports analyst Danny Kanell decided to shift the narrative. Kanell instead turned his focus on the potential for the CFP selection committee to include two Group of Five champions — No. 20 Tulane (American) and No. 25 James Madison (Sun Belt) into the 12-team field despite no Top 25 wins and less-favorable Playoff resumes.

“We’re all arguing about Miami, Alabama, Notre Dame and overlooking that TWO Group (sic) of 5 schools are occupying spots when they have zero business playing in it this year,” Kanell wrote Sunday morning on X/Twitter. “Tulane lost 45-10 to Ole Miss. JMU only played ONE P4 school and lost by 14. What a mess.”

As Kanell pointed out, the Dukes lost 28-14 at Louisville in Week 2, while the Green Wave was blown out 45-10 to No. 6 Ole Miss in Week 4. Meanwhile, No. 9 Alabama is 2-2 against current Top 25 teams, including a Week 5 road win (24-21) over SEC champion and potential No. 2 Georgia, which got revenge in Saturday’s 28-7 victory in Atlanta. The Crimson Tide’s regular-season victory over the Bulldogs would represent the second-best win in all of college football, behind only No. 2 Indiana beating No. 1 Ohio State 13-10 in Saturday’s Big Ten Championship game. Miami and Notre Dame both also have Top 25 wins over the 10th-ranked Fighting Irish and No. 16 USC, respectively.

Meanwhile, James Madison and Tulane also rank well behind Alabama, Miami and Notre Dame in both strength of record and strength of schedule metrics that the CFP selection committee pledged to weigh more heavily this season. According to ESPN Analytics, the Tide are sixth and 10th nationally in SOS and SOR, while Notre Dame (44th SOS, 13th SOR) and Miami (45th SOS, 14th SOR) both have more favorable metrics than the Dukes (123rd SOS, 18th SOR) and the Green Wave (77th SOS, 19th SOR). For comparison purposes, ACC champion Duke has the 74th SOS and 54th SOR.

However Selection Sunday ultimately plays out, it’s no doubt this year’s 12-team College Football Playoff field will cause plenty of controversy morving forward, with or without multiple Group of Five teams.