Jon Sumrall Responds to Criticism of Tulane, James Madison Making CFP

College football's eternal argument continues.

Jon Sumrall bid farewell to Tulane with a 41–10 loss to Ole Miss in the College Football Playoff. / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

Since then-ACC associate commissioner Tom Mickle conceived of the Bowl Coalition on a cocktail napkin in the early 1990s, the question of which teams get to play for the national championship has loomed large over college football.

On Saturday, that question was under the microscope yet again. Tulane and James Madison carried the Group of 5 flag proudly into College Football Playoff games against Ole MIss and Oregon—only for the Green Wave to lose 41–10 and the Dukes to go down 34–6 at half.

After Tulane's loss, Green Wave coach Jon Sumrall addressed the question philosophically, acknowledging fan frustration with Tulane's flop while stressing a need for mid-major representation.

"There should be access for at least one G-5 team moving forward," Sumrall, who will coach Florida in 2026, said. "I do understand the gripe. By how we played tonight, we maybe didn't help the critics of that. I do think there should be at least one G-5 representative."

"I do understand the gripe- by how we played tonight we maybe didn't help with the critics of that. But I do think there should be at least one G5 representative."

Jon Sumrall on the critics of Tulane and JMU making the CFP ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/lgnJ1TfHcI

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) December 21, 2025

The argument over G-5 access is both straightforward and multifaceted. At the simplest possible level, a CFP-equivalent system that excludes the Group of 5 is almost certainly illegal. The old Bowl Championship Series was a near-constant target of antitrust heat, and announcer Joe Tessitore actually said the a-word on the air during a discussion with color man Jesse Palmer on TNT Saturday.

On the other hand, the Group of 5 looks vastly different than it did when the term was coined upon the CFP's 2014 creation. The American has been pilfered, the Mountain West splintered, and the Conference USA and MAC decimated as competitive entities (only the Sun Belt can reasonably say it's had a good decade). It's not that a G-5 team can't win in the current CFP format—it's rather that the first G-5 CFP win, when it inevitably happens, seems likely to take place in a bracket inflated in size beyond recognition.

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