When you have arbitrary criteria for what decides who gets into the College Football Playoff's 12-team field, you have to expect all-over-the-place responses from the College Football audience when things don't go as many hoped.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish's snub from this year's 12-team field has inspired criticism of the Tulane Green Wave and James Madison Dukes, which nabbed the final two spots over every Power 4 bubble team.
247Sports' Bud Elliott complained about the No. 12 Dukes-No. 5 Oregon Ducks game keeping him from enjoying his Saturday night. He later said that "The playoff has two games that if you listed out the top games you want to watch this year, wouldn’t be in the top-100 even," referring also to the No. 11 Green Wave-No. 6 Ole Miss Rebels matchup.
247Sports' Boise State Broncos reporter, Nathan Carroll, had one hell of a clapback.
"Bud has a good point here," Carroll prefaced before saying, "Nothing about Oklahoma/Alabama intrigues me. Just gross football teams this season."
Since CFP committee chair Hunter Yurachek sometimes decides that how a team is playing affects their ranking, it's important to point out that the Tide were dismantled by the Georgia Bulldogs 28-7 in the SEC Championship Game and didn't move down in the rankings -- but the BYU Cougars losing in the Big 12 Championship Game 34-7 to the Texas Tech Red Raiders cost them a trip to the playoff. If it matters what happened earlier in the season when Bama beat UGA, shouldn't their 31-17 Week 1 loss to the FSU Seminoles also matter?
As for OU, they haven't looked the same since the Auburn Tigers injured John Mateer in September. They hardly looked like world-beaters against the Missouri Tigers and LSU Tigers, and their season has been defined by wins over Alabama and the Michigan Wolverines. They lost their other two major tests against Ole Miss and the Texas Longhorns.
Some writers don't like small schools with smaller followings. Others like when the entire sport, and all the people working in it across every conference, is legitimized. Different strokes for different folks.
Notre Dame has complaints about not making the field. But stop aiming them at Tulane and JMU and start aiming at the big brands that aren't performing up to the standards their donors are paying for.