Urban Meyer on G5 teams in the College Football Playoff: ‘It’s not fair to the players involved’

With the first round of the playoff come and gone, there’s still a debate ongoing about the future of the field when it comes to the Group of Five. And, with that, Urban Meyer has made his stance clear when it comes to the G5 being in the College Football Playoff.

Meyer discussed the topic on The Triple Option podcast earlier this week with Rob Stone and Mark Ingram. In his answer, he felt that this system clearly isn’t about getting the best dozen teams based on the inclusion of the Group of Five. Instead, it does a disservice not only to the Top 15-ranked teams that just miss out on making the field, but, to an extent, to those Group of Five schools too given the losses for Tulane and James Madison were “kind of embarrassing for college football”, according to Meyer.

“It’s not the twelve best teams in America. It’s really not even close, to be honest with you,” said Meyer. “And, from what I saw? I guess what’s amazing to me is, what did you expect? You know, maybe there’d be a gigantic upset or something like that, but to throw those guys out there and say, okay, you guys are going to go fly across and play at Oregon? You know, I’m just not a fan of that. When I saw it hit, I thought that’s not – it’s really not fair for the players involved, it’s not fair to the coach, and it’s certainly not fair to those two teams that were left out.

“It was kind of embarrassing for college football to have that happen, you know,” Meyer added. “Like I said, what did you think was going to happen? You know, that was going to happen, and it did.”

Much of this, as it usually does, came down to the formatting for the College Football Playoff, and how it allows for the inclusion of the Group of Five. With that, Meyer hopes to see a different prerequisite for inclusion from that level beyond just being the highest-rated champion from the G5. He also, from there, called for some accountability, as he wanted to know who worded the rule in such a way that would allow the two highest-rated champions from the G5 to be in the CFP.

“There’s no measuring stick. You can’t measure some of those other games and say, what do you think this will look like?” Meyer said. “You have to play and compete with those (teams), so that the committee can have a look and say, okay, this is what this might look like.

“I want to have someone stand up and own it and say that was my fault for doing that. And, of course, you’ll never hear that, because I keep asking who wrote that rule,” Meyer added. “Who wrote that rule?”

There are still people around the sport who wants to see the inclusion of those non-power teams, with a case made as “college football for all” on the podcast soon after by Stone. Meyer, though, couldn’t have disagreed more, as he didn’t feel the need to give charity to those programs at the expense of who he felt were more deserving ones when it came to the chances of winning a national title.

“No. No. No, no, no. Zero chance,” Meyer said to that slogan. “What? Are you a group hug guy? You want a group hug? You want to say, hey, everybody get a chance, and let’s all put our arms around each other? We understand you don’t have one player recruited on your team that can compete with the other one, but, you know what, let’s all do a group hug and we’ll sing afterwards? No. That’s not what you do.

“It’s survival of the fittest. Bad ass players on bad ass teams get in the playoff,” Meyer continued. “Your job is to crown a champion…Your job is to crown a national champion, and get the twelve best teams in America. That’s it. Your job is not to spread the good will. No. Your job is to kick someone’s ass on the field as hard as you possibly can, and reward players that deserve to be there. No, no, no. There’s no group hugs.”