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The fallout from this year’s College Football Playoff continues days after the selection committee sparked controversy with its at-large teams.
The main culprit? Alabama received the No. 9 seed despite being eliminated by the No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship Game to fall to 10-3 on the season.
Many thought the Crimson Tide loss meant Miami and Notre Dame would go in. Instead, the selection committee opted to leave out the Fighting Irish, awarding the Hurricanes the No. 10 seed, followed by conference winners Tulane (No. 11) and James Madison University (No. 12).
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Robert Griffin III on the ESPN Monday Night Football countdown at SoFi Stadium. (Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports)
For FOX Sports analyst and 2011 Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III, the selection committee “just got it wrong this year” and his thoughts revolve around certain biases.
“The SEC bias is clear. You have five SEC teams, and I think most people would agree, after looking at that and looking at the numbers and seeing the recent trends over the last three years, the SEC is just not as dominant as it used to be,” he told PK Press Club Digital after helping USAA gift new vehicles to two military veterans ahead of the 126th Army-Navy game this weekend. “The Big Ten has caught up, the Big 12 is a more competitive league from top to bottom than people give it credit for. I thought the committee could have done the simplest thing possible to make as many people happy because it was within their parameters.”
What exactly was the “simplest possible thing” in Griffin’s eyes? It was for having both Miami and Notre Dame, because now he feels BYU, which went 11-2 this season after being eliminated in the Big 12 championship game by No. 4 Texas Tech, was punished.
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Meanwhile, Alabama had a chance to win a national title despite a similar result and one more loss than the Cougars.
“If you want to punish BYU, punish Alabama,” Griffin said. “Alabama had one more loss, they were both eliminated in their conference championship games. Take them both out. Now this way you put Miami and Notre Dame in it, and you avoid all that face-to-face conversation and all that. They did the worst thing you could do: They punished BYU and then put Miami against Notre Dame, even though neither team played. [in a conference championship] and made them jump each other. It didn’t make any sense. »
Griffin added that one problem for BYU was that they had never been in the top 10 in previous rankings leading up to the selection.
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman, center, gestures from the sideline during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Stanford, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025, in Stanford, California. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
But one of the national discussions is whether the selection committee can be trusted going forward. Of course, an expanded playoff format means some teams are going to have to fight in the end, but Griffin sees bias in the process, as do many others.
“When you talk about trust in the committee, the committee, in my opinion, has too many good men to make this colossal mistake,” he said. “It’s not just a matter of saying, ‘Oh, there might be SEC bias.’ There is clearly an SEC bias. I’m not mad at JMU, I’m not mad at Tulane. They did what they were supposed to do within the rules. They won their matches, they deserve to participate.
“This illusion that we’re trying to field the best 12 teams in the country, that’s not true, man. It was never about the best 12 teams. It’s about the 12 teams that they can justify, and I think they got it wrong this year.”
Notre Dame has since declined any invitation to a bowl game, while BYU is scheduled to play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl against Georgia Tech.
Griffin was returning to Baltimore, where he spent the final years of his NFL playing career, to show his honor through action in the tradition of the annual Army-Navy game by providing two recycled rides with USAA, the official Salute to Service partner of the NFL.
BYU head coach Kalani Sitake, center, contemplates a replay with officials during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Cincinnati, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
HELP THOSE WHO SERVE US
Cryptologic Technician Petty Officer First Class Jamil Lewis, currently serving in the Navy, and veteran Patrick Huber, a specialist with the Army National Guard’s 116th Infantry Regiment, were both surprised by Griffin with the newest vehicle at Inner Harbor in front of the USS Constellation.
Griffin, who himself comes from a military family with his mother and father serving in the military, has long valued his partnership with USAA and couldn’t have been happier to help.
“I was very honored to partner with USAA. We’ve been partners for 13 years, and I’m a guy who loves building real, authentic partnerships. The military brat, mom and dad both served in the military. So, I’m a ‘Go Army, beat Navy’ guy – 31 years combined between them. To see the impact we’ve been able to make over the last 13 years, doing things to make sure our military knows they don’t are not forgotten, it did something for me,” he explained. “If it does anything for me, it’s doing something for the families that we can influence, to make their lives a little easier. It’s not a free car. I say that because, yes, they didn’t have to pay any money for it, but there were sacrifices for us and our freedoms to be able to have this type of treatment. We want them to know that, ‘Hey, man, we appreciate you.'”
(L-R) Mark Steiding of Kenwood Auto Body, NFL Legend Robert Griffin III (RGIII), SPC Patrick Huber (US Army National Guard Veteran), USAA Senior Vice President Rob Braggs and Dale Moss of NABC Recycled Rides pose at USAA’s Army-Navy Game NABC Recycled Rides Car Gifting in Baltimore, MD, Wednesday, December 10, 2025. (Edwin Remsberg)
Griffin said Huber, a longtime Dallas Cowboys fan, made sure to criticize him during their time together about the Washington Commanders, by whom the Baylor product was drafted.
And Griffin also loved watching Lewis’ nine-year-old son, one of his five children, “go crazy” when he realized what was happening.
“They got a free car so much so that, 30 minutes after the event, he’s still sitting in the passenger seat,” Griffin said of Lewis’ son.
