{"id":616443,"date":"2025-12-21T07:25:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T07:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/616443\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T07:25:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T07:25:23","slug":"robert-griffin-iii-defends-tulane-jmu-inclusion-in-cfp-earned-their-butt-whooping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/616443\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Griffin III defends Tulane, JMU inclusion in CFP: &#8216;Earned their butt whooping&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before Saturday even started, the hottest narrative in college football media was that Group of 5 (G5) schools like Tulane and James Madison didn\u2019t belong in the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n<p>Neither school did much on the field to convince the doubters otherwise. The Green Wave lost 41-10 to Ole Miss, and JMU got blown out by Oregon.<\/p>\n<p>Even before those contests were over, many college football pundits and broadcasters were taking victory laps, <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/abc\/joe-tessitore-jesse-palmer-notre-dame-tulane-ole-miss-college-football-playoff.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">including the broadcasters calling Tulane\u2019s game<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Fox Sports\u2019 Robert Griffin III, however, went the other direction. RGIII <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/news\/robert-griffin-iii-defends-tulane-jmu-blowouts-in-cfp-college-football-playoff-using-past-alabama-oklahoma-ohio-state-losses\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defended both schools<\/a> as worthy of inclusion in the CFP, using a different rationale than we\u2019ve seen from others.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Results of the JMU and Tulane game don\u2019t matter. They earned their way into the College Football Playoff and earned their butt whopping like:<\/p>\n<p>-Alabama lost 44-16 to Clemson-2019<br \/>-Oklahoma lost 63-28 to LSU-2019<br \/>-OSU lost 31-0 to Clemson-2016<br \/>-OSU lost 52-24 to Alabama-2021 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qdI9nLqIk1\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/qdI9nLqIk1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UTxqNuTVFa\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/UTxqNuTVFa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RGIII\/status\/2002570598560731296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 21, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Results of the JMU and Tulane game don\u2019t matter,\u201d Griffin wrote on X. \u201cThey earned their way into the College Football Playoff and earned their butt whopping like: Alabama lost 44-16 to Clemson-2019, Oklahoma lost 63-28 to LSU-2019, OSU lost 31-0 to Clemson-2016, OSU lost 52-24 to Alabama-2021.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While many point to the games\u2019 outcome as proof that the G5 schools didn\u2019t belong, Griffin says the result is irrelevant. Inclusion came from what the schools accomplished during the season. And besides, if you\u2019re going to penalize them for getting blown out, you have to hold big-time programs like Alabama, Oklahoma, and Ohio State to that standard as well.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, Josh Pate has a <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/college-football\/josh-pate-why-g5-schools-shouldnt-college-football-playoff-jmu.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">similar stance but takes the opposite side of the coin<\/a>. He argues that the CFP outcome is irrelevant, but what matters is who you play in the regular season. According to him, G5 schools like Tulane and JMU just haven\u2019t \u201cearned\u201d the right to play in the CFP, whereas schools like Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, and BYU have played more demanding schedules that make them more \u201cworthy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before Saturday even started, the hottest narrative in college football media was that Group of 5 (G5) schools&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[88643,332,7,81559,21207,88295,202,4711],"class_list":{"0":"post-616443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-2025-college-football-playoff","9":"tag-college-football-playoff","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-group-of-five","12":"tag-james-madison-dukes","13":"tag-jmu-dukes","14":"tag-robert-griffin-iii","15":"tag-tulane-green-wave"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115756369827501326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}