The 2025 College Football Playoff is underway, and Saturday night concluded the first round. After the 8 vs 9-seed game on Friday, a tripleheader on Saturday finished it and set the stage for the quarterfinals against the top four teams that all received byes. It was a full day from start to finish, though after the 7 vs 10 game, the drama gave way to blowouts, which was expected and put the Group of Six’s future playoff spots into question. Here are three takeaways from the gameday that set the quarterfinal matchups
for the 2025 College Football Playoff:
1. Notre Dame had to be throwing their televisions across the room
The noon game was a clash between the last at-large team to make the field, the Miami Hurricanes, against the Texas A&M Aggies. Both were the only teams to beat Notre Dame in the regular season, so it was fitting they played each other after the Irish whined so much about being left out, and it was fitting the game featured such putrid performances by both teams.
The Hurricanes missed three field goals, the Aggies turned it over three times, and a 22-yard block in the 2nd quarter combined with enough other mishaps to fill a Muppet Show to make it a 10-3 Miami “victory” at the end of the ballgame, where both teams should’ve lost and been sent home packing. Notre Dame had to be going nuts watching these teams try to get their acts together, but as deserving as they think they are of the playoff, think about this: These two circus troupes were the teams they lost to, so I don’t know how good of a resume they can really say they have.
2. Aggies flopped big-time on home turf, blew terrific season late
Texas A&M entered Thanksgiving week with an 11-0 record, sole possession of first place in the SEC, and the #3 ranking in the nation. They were set to make not only their first CFP but also their first SEC championship game. After Friday night, however, they were bested by their archrivals in Austin and bounced out of the SEC picture by tiebreakers.
Their 11-1 record was still good enough for hosting in the CFP first-round, though, and Kyle Field was packed to the brim to make the ACC’s only qualifier fear and tremble before Aggie Nation.
Well, A&M better fear and tremble before Aggie Nation because they put out one of the biggest duds in the history of the playoff. Even James Madison and Tulane scored more points than the Aggies, and despite holding their opponent to just points and watching them miss not one, not two, but three field goals, they lost 10 to 3 in front of all 104,122 of those fans.
Three points!! That’s what got Hugh Freeze fired from Auburn against Kentucky! Very sour end to an 11-0 start.
3. Green Wave and JMU played well, but were in the wrong bracket
Will the Group of Six continue to get conference champion auto-bids to the CFP? Should they? It hurts to think of taking those away, but it also hurts to look at the Saturday slate and see two games where absolutely no drama will happen whatsoever. They played well, but never actually threatened to win.
The 12 best teams aren’t being put in the 12-team playoff in the auto-bid format, and while that’s part of what makes the NCAA Tournament great, it doesn’t seem to be working for college football two years into the expansion.
Perhaps when that Group of Six team can be like the undefeated UCF and Cincinnati teams of several years ago, they can get in and play with an actual chance of winning (and then, like UCF and Cincinnati, move up to the big leagues in the next round of conference realignment!).
