Kirk Herbstreit, Joey Galloway blast 'ridiculous' automatic qualifiers for G5 teams in College Football Playoff

For the past two weeks, the Group of Five has taken heat from college football fans and media alike after No. 20 Tulane and No. 24 James Madison made this year’s College Football Playoff only to lose to No. 6 Ole Miss and No. 5 Oregon, respectively, by a combined 48 points in their first-round matchups last Saturday. At the same time, other prominent Power Four programs like Texas and Notre Dame were left out of this year’s CFP after making it a year ago.

It’s led some college football pundits to call for Group of Five programs to be excluded from future Playoffs. Of course, it’s not the fault of the Group of Five — let alone Tulane and James Madison individually — that they were included after qualifying as two of the five highest-ranked conference champions following the conclusion of Championship Weekend.

Instead, ESPN analysts Joey Galloway and Kirk Herbstreit want to see a more egalitarian approach to selecting future College Football Playoff teams. Rather than including specific qualifiers for conference champions or a set number of automatic bids for specific conferences, only the sport’s highest ranked teams make the CFP field, be it 12 or 16 teams.

“It doesn’t matter who won the ACC. It doesn’t matter who won the Big Ten, who won the SEC. It doesn’t matter who won anything,” Galloway said in Monday’s episode of their Nonstop podcast. “What we’re going to do, at the end (of the regular season), the top-ranked 16 teams, boom, you’re in (the Playoffs). It eliminates all of the conversations. You’ve added another one next season with the Notre Dame (memorandum of understanding), … why?”

Following the Fighting Irish’s Playoff snub on Selection Sunday, Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua revealed a MOU the program signed with the CFP last Spring would guarantee it a Playoff bid so long as it’s ranked in the Top 12 of a 12- or 14-team field beginning in 2026. That means, if a similar scenario plays out next season, the 11th-ranked Irish would get the CFP’s final at-large bid over No. 10 Miami even with a head-to-head loss in Week 1. The ACC champion, in this year’s case an unranked Duke, would also be guaranteed a Playoff bid over a second Group of Five champion.

Kirk Herbstreit blasts Notre Dame having MOU guarantee with CFP: ‘They shouldn’t need that’

“They shouldn’t need that,” Herbstreit said about Notre Dame’s MOU. “If they’re good, they’re ranked, they’re good.”

Galloway then doubled-down, calling out recent proposals by the Big Ten that involve guaranteeing the Power Four leagues a set number of automatic qualifiers in future Playoff formats. The Big Ten’s “4+4+2+2+1+1” proposal would give the Big Ten and SEC four AQ bids apiece, while limiting the ACC and Big 12 to two bids apiece.

“Everything I hear for the future always involves these conversations involves the SEC gets X amount, the Big Ten gets X amount, which is going to be equal to the SEC. Then we divvy up what’s left for these other conferences. … Let’s eliminate every qualification,” Galloway suggested.

At this point, Herbstreit shifted gears and offered another option for the Group of Five — their own Playoffs similar to what takes place in lower divisions.

“Let them have their own championship 16-team Playoff,” Herbstreit added. “We celebrate it, we televise it, we hype it. If one of them qualifies to get into the (CFP), then you put them in. The rest of the teams have their own Playoff.”

Of course, given the millions of dollars at stake with the College Football Playoff — both James Madison and Tulane received $4 million apiece for simply making this year’s field — however future formats look, it will remain the end-all, be-all for FBS teams, be they from the Power Four or Group of Five.