The final week of the college football regular season is here, and almost everything is still up for grabs in the Group of 5 conferences. Before we get into the mailbag, I figured I should lay out the championship game scenarios for every G5 conference.
American
This one is a doozy, so stay with me.
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• The winner of Cincinnati–Tulane on Friday will host the AAC championship game.
• If UCF beats USF, UCF gets the other spot.
• If Cincinnati beats Tulane and USF beats UCF, Tulane gets the other spot.
• If Tulane beats Cincinnati, USF beats UCF and Tulsa beats Houston, Cincinnati gets the other spot.
• If Tulane beats Cincinnati, USF beats UCF and Houston beats Tulsa, the final spot is determined by a combination of computer rankings between Cincinnati and Houston. (Entering the week, Cincinnati is ranked 26.75 and Houston is 47.25.)
UCF’s loss to Navy seemed to throw everything in the air, but the CFP committee keeping the Knights in the Top 25 at No. 22 made things easier. UCF has single tiebreakers over No. 19 Tulane and No. 24 Cincinnati because of head-to-head wins. If there’s a three-way tie between UCF, Houston and the Tulane-Cincinnati loser, the spot goes to the highest-ranked team among the three that won its last game. That would be UCF.
Conference USA
• UTSA is the host.
• If North Texas beats Rice, North Texas gets the other spot.
• If FAU beats Western Kentucky, North Texas gets the spot.
• If Rice beats North Texas and WKU beats FAU, WKU gets the spot.
MAC
• Toledo has won the West.
• Ohio has won the East after Tuesday night’s win against Bowling Green.
• The game is at Ford Field in Detroit.
Mountain West
• Boise State will host Fresno State
Sun Belt
• Coastal Carolina has won the East division spot. (James Madison can earn a division title share if it beats Coastal, but it’s not eligible for the championship game.)
• If Troy beats Arkansas State, Troy wins the West.
• If Old Dominion beats South Alabama, Troy wins the West.
• If Arkansas State beats Troy and South Alabama beats ODU, South Alabama wins the West.
Mailbag
Any chance Coastal Carolina gets the G5 bid for the NY6? — Nicholas P.
No. 22 UCF remaining in the CFP Top 25 was surprising, and it makes the path for the unranked Chanticleers to the Cotton Bowl almost impossible. Ironically, in what is maybe the weakest season in the Group of 5 since the CFP began, the committee has given the G5 more respect than ever before. Or maybe it’s just the AAC. UCF dropped only two spots after the loss to Navy, surely because of the wins against Tulane and Cincinnati.
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At this point, we know a two-loss AAC champion (Tulane or Cincinnati) or three-loss UCF would stay ahead of Coastal Carolina, as they are now. The only path I see for an 11-1 Coastal team would be if UCF loses to USF, and then the Tulane-Cincinnati loser (or Houston) beats the Tulane-Cincinnati winner in the title game. But that’s a long shot.
The AAC got respect from the CFP this year. The Sun Belt and C-USA did not.
Chris, which G5 bowl-eligible or five-win fan bases should be most worried about missing out on a bowl if there’s more eligible teams than spots? — Louis S.
The good (or bad) news is that my colleagues Stewart Mandel and Scott Dochterman project only 80 bowl-eligible teams for 82 spots right now. That is good for UConn, which is bowl-eligible at 6-6 but doesn’t have any guaranteed bowl tie-ins.
In the scenario where there aren’t enough to fill spots, if Rice loses to North Texas and finishes 5-7, the Owls would have a good chance as a 5-7 team based on APR. UNLV would also have a good shot if it beats Nevada to finish 5-7 in the same scenario. Next in line among five-win teams would be Auburn.
If there are more bowl-eligible teams than spots, a team from the Sun Belt or Mountain West could be left out. Those leagues may use up all of their guaranteed tie-ins, making it a free-for-all after that. In that scenario, UConn could get picked ahead of a leftover MWC or SBC team. Or maybe a second Frisco Football Classic would be created on the spot to make sure everyone gets a bid.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that Appalachian State and Army both have two FCS wins. Only one of those wins counts toward bowl eligibility. (App State and Marshall added a late FCS game when their scheduled nonconference matchup became a Sun Belt conference game.) That means only the App State-Georgia Southern winner will be bowl-eligible. Army can finish 6-6 at best, but it would be viewed as a five-win team in the bowl process and won’t make it in.
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Chris, if you would please ask the MAC office why they assigned home games to Buffalo the last week of the season? Analysis over common sense regarding the chance of snow. Same geniuses that schedule Bowling Green vs. Toledo on a weeknight. — Lance R.
I mean, it could snow anywhere in the Midwest at this time of year. Did you see the two snow games last week at Central Michigan and Toledo?
HE DOES IT AGAIN!
The snow can't stop @BertEmanuel3! @CMU_Football | #MACtion pic.twitter.com/feGP8HXRO0
— #MACtion (@MACSports) November 17, 2022
Chris, how is it that there aren’t any college football games on TV the night before Thanksgiving, specifically any G5 games? It’s a prime-time window when most people are home looking for something on TV. Is this a missed opportunity by conferences or would the logistics of playing that night just be too complicated? — Trent Y.
This is a great question that I hadn’t even realized until I read this. I asked someone at the MAC, and they didn’t quite know, only saying there is not a specific MAC policy against it. The MAC played two games on Tuesday. If I find out more, I’ll update.
You make a good point that it is a rare open window. There are games on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, after all. Perhaps another conference could decide with its media partner to play such a game in the future.
Chris, if you had the magic to place any FCS team into any FBS conference of your choosing, what team and conference would you pick? (Bonus: What would their record be?) Thanks! — Charlie P.
It has to be North Dakota State in the Mountain West, assuming geography has to mean something. The Bison really are the last big fish in FCS, with James Madison now in the Sun Belt and Sam Houston moving up to Conference USA next year.
NDSU has actually had a “down” year this season, with two losses (one to Arizona), and it enters the FCS playoffs with the No. 3 seed. Yes, that constitutes a down season because of the ridiculous amount of success. This program has won nine of the past 11 national titles, an unprecedented run.
The Bison regularly hold their own against FBS teams, and it would be fun to see that on an annual basis. Perhaps the Mountain West will look to add schools if it loses San Diego State to the Pac-12. Imagine the Boise State-NDSU games.
I think NDSU would immediately contend for the Mountain West title. It’s sustained success over many years and many coaches. There is a formula.
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Has anyone checked in on Joe Moorhead at Akron? From the outside there doesn’t seem to be any signs of progress, but are there any signs of a foundation being laid? — Andy S.
Last year, The Athletic polled a bunch of people in college football about the hardest FBS jobs. Akron got two first-place votes and was voted the fourth-toughest G5 job. But it was the toughest job in a conference, as the top three were independent programs. The Zips have had one winning season since 2005, and while the stadium is nice and the facilities are decent by MAC standards, it’s been down for so long, even with a couple bowl of appearances.
“A good two-star recruit who may have a scholarship offer to play football at Akron might decide to play football at (Division III) Mount Union and win a national championship,” a Power 5 administrator said at the time. “You’re not winning any championships at Akron.”
That’s why it was so stunning that Moorhead took the job. He could have gotten a much better one. It’s going to be a long rebuild. This year’s Akron team is 1-9 with an overtime win against St. Francis (Pa.), an FCS team. But there are small signs that things have improved throughout the year. The Zips have three one-possession losses in their past four games and four of their six MAC games. After scoring one touchdown in three nonconference FBS games, they have averaged 24.5 points per game in conference play, eighth in the league.
Akron throws more passes than anyone in the MAC, at 42.3 attempts per game behind junior quarterback DJ Irons, and it’s last in rushing attempts per game. Akron is in the bottom half of the league in pass efficiency, but that’s the identity right now: Throw the ball a lot. Things may slowly be getting better, but we won’t know for a while. The No. 1 toughest job in that poll last year was UConn, and the Huskies are bowl-eligible in Jim Mora’s first season. But the Huskies have a lot more resources at their disposal.
Does Biff Poggi’s salary at Charlotte say anything about the new AAC? Them paying him $1 million vs. the current average of the remaining AAC schools being about $2.25 — what can we read from that? — Scott G.
We can read what we already knew. Some of these new AAC schools are not at the financial level of the current AAC, and that includes Charlotte. We know North Texas and UAB can pay closer to $2 million, but Poggi’s $1 million salary is higher than Will Healy’s $835,000. It is a step up for Charlotte, even if it’s behind most of the rest of the league. That’s the reality. This is still a young program and it lacks a lot of infrastructure like nutrition and staffing. There is potential, but there is a long way to go. The program still needs to raise a lot of money. Maybe Poggi’s background in the financial world can speed that up.
Power rankings
1. Tulane (9-2)
2. Coastal Carolina (9-1)
3. UTSA (9-2)
4. Troy (9-2)
5. UCF (8-3)
6. Cincinnati (9-2)
7. Liberty (8-3)*
8. Boise State (8-3)
9. South Alabama (9-2)
10. Air Force (8-3)
Just missed: BYU*, Houston, James Madison, East Carolina, Western Kentucky
*Independent programs are not eligible for the Group of 5’s New Year’s Six spot
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Games of the week
American: No. 19 Tulane at No. 24 Cincinnati (-2)
Noon ET Friday, ABC
Pick: Cincinnati
C-USA: Rice at North Texas (-13.5)
2 p.m. ET Saturday, ESPN+
Pick: North Texas to win, Rice to cover
MAC: Kent State at Buffalo (-4)
1 p.m. ET Saturday, ESPN+
Pick: Buffalo
Mountain West: Air Force (-2) at San Diego State
9 p.m. ET Saturday, CBSSN
Pick: SDSU
Sun Belt: Appalachian State (-5.5) at Georgia Southern
6 p.m. ET Saturday, ESPN+
Pick: App State
(Top photo: Greg Fiume/Getty Images)
