The College Football Playoff & the Obsession with Hierarchy

Everyone loves an underdog story—unless it involves the College Football Playoff. The College Football Playoff Selection Committee engaged in their annual tradition of irritating the college football world this past week, selecting the 12 teams that will be competing for the national championship. This year, due to the ACC being a deeply unserious conference, allowed for an anomaly that no one foresaw when the 12-team format was introduced: the inclusion of two Group of Five schools in the playoff field.

While many assume that the five automatic bids for the playoff go to the champions of the Power Four (Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC) and one Group of Five champion, that is not the case. The five automatic bids go to the five highest ranked conference champions. When Duke won the ACC but ranked below both Tulane and James Madison, those G5 champions claimed two automatic bids (James Madison and Tulane).

This is a triumph for the Group of Five, giving them two chances to play bigger schools and prove that they belong on the field. We have been given two underdogs to rally behind to shock the college football world. Instead, the response has been vitriolic—with many calling for eliminating the G5 schools from the playoff altogether. The reaction is a societal reminder that we often glorify the rich, while treating those with less resources as patently inferior.

Meritocracy Versus Structural Advantage

Many have called the inclusion of Tulane and James Madison an embarrassment for the sport and a joke. The outrage stems from the exclusion of Notre Dame and Texas from the field in favor of the two smaller schools. The expanded College Football Playoff was intended to bring parity into the sport. It’s so that schools not named Georgia, Ohio State, or Alabama could have a reasonable chance to win a national championship.

The expansion to 12 (and potentially to 16 eventually) was billed as a win for meritocracy, that teams would be able to prove it on the field. The rules were agreed upon with the idea to give one G5 school a chance, when in reality they were never truly accepted. Now that they have essentially occupied a spot instead of Notre Dame, many are aggrieved.

It speaks to the way that we treat the wealthy versus those that are less fortunate. The teams in the Power Four are the equivalent of the rich ruling class, given their larger television deals and deeper booster networks. The Group of Five features schools that make the most of the scraps in the trickle-down economy of the college football landscape. They have limited access to resources and any improvements they make are often pillaged by the Power Four in the transfer portal.

In modern American society we are often sold a dream that anything is possible with hard work and dedication. We have sold the same bill of goods in college football to the Group of Five—be the best conference champion and you can have a crumb at the Power Four table.

But when that crumb becomes a small slice, all of a sudden it is a flaw of the system and travesty to the integrity of the sport. The result has been to discuss the perceived inferiority of the talent level at the G5 level, bemoaning the fact that we don’t see a team like Vanderbilt (who likely isn’t good enough to win a national title anyway) compete for a title.

This all has the essence of the wealthy becoming uncomfortable that those outside of their circle are a part of the system. And the result has been in calling for a massive revamp when the decision to include James Madison and Tulane was within the rules and wasn’t a result of the committee’s decision—they are being judged for the weakness of the ACC. Sadly, it is a page from the same playbook that the rich use to justify their stranglehold over the poor.

The Ever-Moving Goal Posts

Often in sports, we talk a lot about fairness, the desire to have a level playing field. This of course occurs very rarely. Certain teams find advantages and exploit them in different ways; this has always been the case throughout the history of sport. In college football, the playoff was positioned as a sort of watershed moment, where the idea of a Cinderella story that we are used to in March Madness would make its way to the football field.

While many of us may have taken this to mean that teams like UCF and Boise State that were denied a seat at the table would finally get a chance, that wasn’t the true intention. The intention was for the second, third, and fourth best teams at bigger conferences to have a second chance to prove their worthiness. The G5’s inclusion was a concession to maintain the illusion of fairness—like letting the working class bid on luxury condos while ensuring they can never actually afford them. The presence of two (in accordance with the rules they agreed to) has become an outrage.

It highlights a double standard that we view different conferences from. Let’s say that both Miami (FL) and James Madison lose their opening round games by multiple touchdowns. The way those losses would be discussed might be vastly different. Miami would be relieved of “having an off day” or that they would be back next year. James Madison would be proof of not belonging, that they were always fraudulent. It mirrors the way that the affluent are able to make multiple mistakes whereas one mistake by a poor person follows them for the rest of their life.

The reality that has been proven by this process is that the general college football public doesn’t truly want equity across conferences, it merely wants the illusion of it on their terms. They want to see big brands like Texas, Michigan, and Notre Dame compete for titles regardless of their actual merit on the field. The sport is obsessed with the best talent on the field and completely ignoring the magic that comes with the potential for an upset.

In America we have an obsession with the ruling elite, and the same logic applies to college football. It feels more and more that we are heading towards a separation that will require two tournaments: one for the Power Four and another for the Group of Five. With the happenings of this playoff selection, the message has been clear: we are obsessed with power and hate seeing the underdog actually have a seat at the table.

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