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The fallout of this year’s College Football Playoff bracket continues days after the selection committee ignited controversy with its at-large-bid teams.
The main culprit? Alabama was given the No. 9 seed despite being blown out by the No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship Game to fall to 10-3 on the season.
Many believed the Crimson Tide’s loss meant both Miami and Notre Dame were going to get in. Instead, the selection committee chose 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).
For FOX Sports analyst and 2011 Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III, the selection committee simply “got it wrong this year,” and his thoughts revolve around some bias.
“The SEC bias is clear. You got five SEC teams in it, and I think most people would agree, having looked at this and looked at the numbers and seen the recent trends over the last three years, the SEC simply isn’t as dominant as what it used to be,” he told Fox News Digital after helping USAA gift two military veterans with new vehicles before the 126th Army-Navy game this weekend. “The Big Ten has caught up, the Big 12 is a more competitive league top to bottom than they’re given credit for. I thought the committee could’ve done the easiest thing possible to make the most people happy because it was inside their parameters.”
What exactly was the “easiest thing possible” in the eyes of Griffin? It was to have both Miami and Notre Dame in, because now he feels BYU, who went 11-2 this season after getting blown out in the Big 12 Championship Game by No. 4 Texas Tech, was punished.
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Meanwhile, Alabama was given a chance at a national title despite a similar result and one more loss than the Cougars.
“If you’re going to punish BYU, punish Alabama,” Griffin explained. “Alabama’s got one extra loss, they both got blown out in their conference championship games. Move them both out. Now, that way you put both Miami and Notre Dame in, and you avoid that whole conversation of head-to-head and all that. They did the worst thing you could do: they punished BYU and then put Miami in over Notre Dame, even though neither team played [in a conference championship] and made them jump each other. It made zero sense.”
Griffin added that a problem for BYU was that they were never within the top 10 in prior rankings leading up to the selection.
But one of the national conversations is whether the selection committee can be trusted moving forward. Of course, an expanded playoff format means some teams are just going to have to fall out in the end, but Griffin sees bias in the process like many others do.
“When you talk about trusting the committee, the committee, in my opinion, have too many good men on it that they would make this colossal mistake,” he said. “It’s not just, ‘Oh, there might be some SEC bias.’ There’s clearly SEC bias. I’m not mad at JMU, I’m not mad at Tulane. They did what they were supposed to do based off the rules. They won their games, they deserve to be in.
“This illusion that we’re trying to put the 12 best teams in the country — it’s not true, man. It’s never been about the 12 best teams. It’s about the 12 teams they can justify putting in, and I think they got it wrong this year.”
Notre Dame has since declined any bowl game invitation, while BYU is set to play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl against Georgia Tech.
Griffin was back in Baltimore, where he spent the remaining years of his NFL playing career, to show honor through action in the tradition of the annual Army-Navy Game by gifting two recycled rides with USAA, the official Salute to Service partner of the NFL.
HELPING THOSE WHO SERVE US
Cryptological Technican Petty Officer First Class Jamil Lewis, who is currently serving in the Navy, and veteran Patrick Huber, Specialist 116th Infantry Regiment, Army National Guard were both surprised by Griffin with the brand-new vehicle at Inner Harbor in front of the USS Constellation.
Griffin, who comes from a military family himself with his mother and father serving in the Army, has long enjoyed his partnership with USAA and couldn’t have been happier to help out with this.
“I’ve been so honored to partner with USAA. We’ve been partnered together for the last 13 years, and I’m a guy who likes to do genuine, authentic partnerships. Military brat, mom and dad both served in the Army. 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 our military members know they’re not forgotten, it does something for me,” he explained. “If it’s doing something for me, it’s doing something for these families we get to impact, to make their lives a little bit easier. It’s not a free car. I say that because, yeah, they didn’t have to pay money for it, but there was sacrifice for us and our freedoms to be able to get this type of treatment. We want them to know that, ‘Hey, man, we appreciate you.’”
Griffin said that Huber, a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan, made sure to take a crack at him during their time together about the Washington Commanders, who the Baylor product was drafted by.
And Griffin also loved seeing Lewis’ nine-year-old son, one of his five children, “going ballistic” when he realized what was happening.
“They got a free car to the point where, 30 minutes after the event, he’s still sitting in the passenger’s side seat,” Griffin said about Lewis’ son.
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