ESPN announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman aren’t fans of the way some people have talked about the new 12-team College Football Playoff.

Notre Dame, Penn State, Texas and Ohio State all won their openers with relative ease, leading some to complain about how well the new format has caught on.

ESPN colleague Kirk Herbstreit once said that Indiana “wasn’t a team that should have been on that field” after they were soundly beaten by the Fighting Irish.

But Buck and Aikman didn’t feel the same way, and the two defended the way things have been going in the CFP this year during a break in the Packers-Saints game on “Monday Night Football.”

“I think the disappointment is for those who want to question whether these teams belong in the playoffs,” Aikman said. “I think making those comments in hindsight and after devastating losses of the magnitude that they suffered — I don’t know if that’s fair to anyone. We see teams in the Super Bowl losing by large margins. And they were worth it. Hats off to the winners and really all the teams – regardless of whether they lost last week or not.”

Buck, an Indiana graduate, also weighed in on the topic, saying the negative talk doesn’t diminish how “terribly proud” Indiana graduates are after the year they’ve had.

“And I think what it does is it detracts from the work that the teams that won did,” Buck said. “Like in the case of Notre Dame or Penn State and the work they did to win those games. I mean, it’s sport. And not everyone shows their best result every evening. But it was a fun college season.

Buck compared the conversation to the one fans have every year during March Madness and the complaints some fans ultimately have about who made it and who didn’t.

“I guess, you know, you can put 100 teams in there and someone will still be upset about it,” Buck added.

The College Football Playoff continues on New Year’s Eve when No. 6 Penn State takes on No. 3 Boise State.