David Pollack calls for College Football Playoff change after Notre Dame snub: 'Putting in JMU who can't win a game is mind-blowing'

The final at-large berth in the 2025 College Football Playoffs ultimately came down to the result of a game that took place 14 weeks before Selection Sunday, when a 10th-ranked Miami knocked off preseason No. 6 Notre Dame 27-24 on Aug. 31. That single loss ultimately doomed the Fighting Irish’s Playoff chances 3 1/2 months later when the CFP selection committee utilized that season-opening head-to-head result to propel the Hurricanes into the No. 10 spot previously occupied by Notre Dame on Selection Sunday.

Reaction to Notre Dame’s Playoff snub has been all over the place, including the 10-2 Irish announcing it would decline all potential bowl game invitations after missing out on the opportunity to battle it out for a shot at the 2025 national championship.

But, arguably the loudest voices have come from those like former ESPN analyst David Pollack who have directed their ire at the fact that the CFP 12-team field includes two Group of Five champions: No. 20 Tulane (11-2) and No. 24 James Madison (12-1), which won the American and Sun Belt conferences, respectively. The Green Wave and Dukes qualified for the 12-team field as the fourth and fifth highest-ranked conference champions in the CFP’s final Top 25, which left unranked ACC champion Duke (8-5) on the outside looking in despite upsetting No. 17 Virginia on Saturday night.

David Pollack: ‘It’s a travesty’ that Tulane and James Madison are in 2025 Playoffs

“It’s a travesty for the sport that you have Tulane and JMU in. Good for them, they earned their way into it, but that’s not how this is supposed to be setup,” Pollack said during Sunday’s instant reaction episode of his See Ball Get Ball podcast.

“There has to be changes moving forward. This cannot happen again where you get two Group of Five teams in there,” Pollack continued. “It’s not fair to so many teams across the country. It’s not fair to Notre Dame. The fact that Notre Dame could win this whole freaking thing, but we’re putting in JMU, who can’t win a game, is absolutely mind-blowing. That system is broken. That system is not something that we want to continue with in college football. No way, no how.”

Pollack isn’t alone in his call for future Playoff format reform, which remains up in the air with the CFP board of governors expected to hold further discussions with the Power Four leagues about expanding future Playoff fields beginning next season. Late last month, On3’s Brett McMurphy reported ESPN and the College Football Playoff agreed to extend their joint deadline through January to finalize a new CFP format that would expand the current 12-team field to between 16- and 24-teams.

Whether those expanded fields even include bids for Group of Five champions will certainly be a topic of discussion, but based on the Big Ten’s most recent 24-team proposal, it’s certainly a possibility.