The 2025 College Football Playoff is nearly upon us. The 12-team field is determined entirely by a committee of voters, who are newly elected each year. The way the current situation is laid out, the five highest ranked conference champions all get automatic bids, with 7 at large bids to the next highest ranked teams. This season, the team to receive the last bid is still very much up in the air. Among the teams in consideration is Harrisonburg’s own JMU Dukes. The Dukes boast a 11-1 record and are riding high on a ten game win streak. Despite this, the Committee still has 10-2 Tulane, and 11-1 North Texas ahead in the playoff race over JMU. Why is this, and what factors does the Committee take into consideration when selecting teams for the playoff?
Perhaps the most significant factor that the Committee takes into account is a team’s Strength of Schedule (SOS). Both North Texas and Tulane are in the American Athletic Conference (AAC), while JMU resides in the Sun Belt Conference (SBC). The AAC’s conference schedule tends to be harder, with teams like USF, Memphis, and Navy playing alongside Tulane and UNT. The SBC, at least this year, doesn’t have much talent to speak of, apart from the always dangerous Appalachian State. In this category, the obvious edge goes to the Green Wave, which is most likely why the Committee has them sitting in their current playoff picture.
Another factor they take into account is strength of victories. This falls under the umbrella of what the committee calls the “eye test”. This “eye test” is basically, “How does a team look when they play, regardless of who they are playing?”. Regardless of who plays in your conference, conference games are never gimmes. Teams have to leave no doubt that they should be in. As seen in the table, JMU has done just that compared to the others, and gets the edge in this category.
Possibly the biggest factor the Committee considers other than strength of schedule for Group Of Five teams is their record against Power Four squads. JMU lost their only game of the year to the ACC’s Louisville Cardinals in week 2 of the season. This was a game that JMU was leading at the half, and had a real shot to win. Tulane beat Northwestern, and Duke, but lost big against Ole Miss. Meanwhile, North Texas has not played a Power Four school all year. The stats tell the story on this one, chalk up a point for Tulane.
The Committee also has to take into account common opponents. UNT and Tulane play in the same conference, so they share many common opponents. The two have shockingly not played each other (yet), but the biggest common opponent that jumps off the card is UTSA, who beat Tulane 48-26, but lost big to UNT 55-17 two weeks earlier. Normally, a loss like this would crush playoff hopes, but the committee has clearly prioritized SOS and Power Four wins over common opponents, which hurts JMU, although they still get the point in this category.
We are coming down the stretch of the season and conference championship week has arrived. JMU will host Troy in the Sun Belt Championship, while North Texas and Tulane will play each other in the AAC Championship, an absolutely huge matchup. If JMU were to beat its opponent decisively and the Tulane-UNT matchup were to be extremely close, it may just be enough to tip the voters in JMU’s favor. Another glimmer of hope for Dukes fans emerged last week, as Cal beat SMU, sending the Duke Blue Devils to the ACC Championship. If Duke were to beat Virginia, in all likelihood, both JMU and the winner of UNT-Tulane would be in, as a one-loss JMU team would almost certainly be ranked above the five-loss Blue Devils.
Even after the analysis, for me, the picture still remains murky. If it were my vote, bias aside, I would put JMU in. We cannot ignore that UTSA-Tulane game like the Committee seems to be doing, and in my mind, JMU is a better candidate than North Texas in all aspects. In terms of the SOS argument, in JMU’s defense, a road matchup against Liberty and conference matchups against teams like Louisiana and App State, teams who were supposed to be great coming into the season, are theoretically hard on paper. Reality is, none of those teams really panned out, which isn’t their fault. Legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi puts it best, saying, “You can’t control your schedule, you have to focus on beating whatever team is in front of you”. The Dukes have done just that, but at the end of the day, it’s all in the Committee’s hands, and only time will tell which way they will lean.
