After watching James Madison and Tulane lose by a combined 48 points in the College Football Playoff this weekend, it would be easy for BYU and Big 12 fans to feel jilted. If the Group of Five didn’t get seats at the playoff table, Notre Dame and BYU would have been playing at Ole Miss and Oregon instead of the Dukes and Green Wave.

It’s not hard to find people to agree with you on that point. An army of highly influential college football personalities spent the last week proclaiming it’s absurd to give even a sliver of playoff access to more than half of the FBS.

Never mind that the SEC’s own Tennessee Volunteers lost by more in last year’s first round than JMU did on Saturday. Or that blowouts of Power Four teams have been a staple of the playoff era since it began in 2014. The Klatt/Herbstreit Brigade is marching stronger than ever, eager to lead college football down the path to sterilized, semi-pro football. 

My message to BYU and Big 12 fans is this: Don’t fall into their trap. While today the Klatt/Herbstreit Brigade’s target is the Group of Five, make no mistake, they’re coming for the Big 12 (and ACC) next. 

The Group of Five is the new scapegoat, but the real problem is that the SEC, the Big Ten, TV networks, and decades of poor NCAA leadership have systematically mangled the sport.

If we didn’t have comically large, geographically nonsensical conferences, there wouldn’t have been a second Group of Five team in the playoff this year. With all four power leagues at 16 teams or higher, it’s impossible to create balanced schedules. That left Miami out of the ACC title game on tiebreakers, and five-loss Duke won the league. 

When the SEC took Texas and Oklahoma, and the Big Ten grabbed Oregon, USC, Washington, and UCLA, the Big 12 and ACC expanded to survive. The Power Two, alongside their TV partners, set off the domino effect that started ripping out the soul and sensibility of the sport.

Group of Five detractors will bellow that these teams can’t compete anymore, and there will never be another Boise State over Oklahoma. They’re probably right. But why is that?

For decades, NCAA leaders at the national, conference, and school levels refused to adopt common-sense rules that would have given players more freedom to transfer and earn money in a structured way. They eventually got crushed in court, and the result is a world with almost no guardrails on transfers or cash.

How is the Group of Five supposed to hold onto talent in a world where their best players can leave at virtually any time for whatever number a bigger brand wants to pay?

And it’s only going to get worse. As spending gets more outlandish, the SEC and Big Ten will keep widening the gap on everyone else, including the Big 12 and ACC.

The Big 12 and Utah are dipping into private capital and private equity to try to keep up, but the Power Two will follow in due time with more lucrative versions of those deals. After hoarding all of the dominant brands of the sport, each TV deal will also greatly increase the SEC and Big Ten’s financial advantage. 

It won’t stop with the Big 12 and ACC. Unequal revenue sharing was part of the Big Ten private capital proposal that’s now on hold. Eventually, even lower-tier Big Ten and SEC programs will end up on the chopping block, too.

If the top 15-20 college football brands tried to form a Super League or a Big Ten/SEC-only playoff tomorrow and cut out 75% of the FBS, it would invite an antitrust lawsuit and a fan revolt, similar to the European soccer backlash that helped kill the 2021 Super League attempt.

But they can still accomplish the exact same thing without the mess by doing it very gradually. 

We’ve seen the big brands’ plan in action each of the last two years during and after the playoff. 

1. Continue to tilt the rules and structure of the sport in your favor. 

2. Watch a certain team or teams get blown out in the playoff.

3. Complain that they shouldn’t be included or get a bye, etc. 

4. Mobilize the Klatt/Herbstreit Brigade with synchronized talking points to get as many on board as you can.

5. Execute a playoff rule change.

Last year, the playoff byes for Arizona State and Boise State resulted in instant change. This year, Group of Five inclusion is on the chopping block. At some point, as the SEC and Big Ten further tighten their grip on the sport, they’ll come for the Big 12, ACC, and lower-level Big Ten and SEC teams when they start taking playoff beatdowns. 

Over time, the powers that be can whittle college football down to the top 24-ish brands and turn it into diet-NFL football, stripping out the soul of the sport. It won’t just devastate the teams that get left out first. It will create diminishing returns even for the biggest brands. If you remove what made college football a multi-billion-dollar business in the first place, the money spigot eventually slows down.

Big 12 schools are doing their best to fight back. Utah’s private equity deal is designed to keep pace. Cody Campbell is trying to change the sport in a meaningful way. BYU and Arizona State stepped up financially to keep generational coaches. 

But it is going to be the fight of our lives. 

So I urge you to avoid punching down at the Group of Five right now. Eventually, that fist turns toward you and your school.

What You Need to Know

• BYU and Notre Dame have agreed to a two-year football series in 2026 and 2027. The Fighting Irish will come to Provo next season. I have the perfect idea for how the Cougars should celebrate the occasion. 

• Kenny Dillingham said no to Michigan and will sign an extension with Arizona State that includes a massive assistant salary pool. He then took some heat for this public plea he made to improve ASU football. 

• Another one of the best Big 12 quarterbacks is heading to the transfer portal in what has been a brutal offseason for Big 12 quarterback retention. 

• K-State is losing arguably its best player to the transfer portal. 

• The Big 12 made an important hire early this week. 

• New K-State GM Trey Scott joined the 3MAW podcast to explain why he has the perfect background to be a college football GM in 2025. 

• For more on the Group of Five haters coming after the Big 12 and Texas Tech’s chances against Oregon, check out my latest YouTube live stream.

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