Exactly. Best I could see is 2 wins. Upset in the first round, then maybe play a weaker conference champ in the second round and get another stunner, but by the semis it’ll be all good teams and they won’t stand a chance
Agreed, this isnt basketball. Line up against bigger faster guys week in and week out it will wear you out and take a physical toll. Its not that g5 teams are bad or poorly coached all the time, they just have to make a team out of left over parts generally.
Yup. At a certain point, talent trumps coaching (especially if both teams have at least competent coaches).
It doesn’t matter if you give the G5 team Nick Saban as their coach. There’s only so much you can do when the team on the other side is Georgia/Texas/Oregon. They’re just bigger, faster, and stronger than you, and the coaches aren’t going to mess it up that badly.
Not *totally* related but I remember seeing an interview with Mike Singletary that the thing he struggled with the most when he moved to coaching was that he’d draw up plays that would’ve been great when he was with the 85 Bears but the players he was coaching just didn’t have the talent to execute them.
Save a couple seasons - Oregon has been good, if not great, since like 2009. Sure, they never won a title but only 15 teams have in the last 30 years have. That doesn’t mean they haven’t been great.
I agree it’s odd to see Oregon, Texas and UGA used as examples as opposed to Ohio St., Michigan, and Alabama.
I honestly *almost* feel bad for Washington this year. Losing pretty much every piece of your star offense, your coach, and your best CB transferring to Oregon that sucks.
Yeah It is what it is I guess, there will be growing pains and then we will return to the top 20 program we’ve been. Muhammad transferring to Oregon rly sucks tho
TCU was a pretty close example of this already. Managed to win their conference with 6 year guys, pull off an amazing close upset to just get freaking demolished
The introduction of autobids is like basketball though. I could see someone getting a stranglehold on the G5 autobid like Gonzaga in basketball and then using the recruiting pitch of come here and you’re guaranteed to make the playoff to become a top 15ish team perennially.
As I typed that out I realized a football Gonzaga gets added to a P5 immediately.
Yeah and, even a lower P5 is going to have some solid depth
A G5 strength is in its starters, and talent usually drops off after that hard just by virtue of... its hard to score talent against some of these guys
I don't know how much that remains the case in the NIL/Portal era though. Most of the peak G5s were developmental programs, taking guys that had the right build but were a little rough around the edges and molding them into stars; you normally weren't playing meaningful snaps until your junior year in a lot of those programs. Now if you show promise early, you're gone. Heck, now even if you're a developmental guy and do 3 years, are you going to stick around for your 4th when a blue blood calls offers you a bag after you ball out your junior year?
Sure these days you see those teams picking up P4 washouts more and more and getting them their confidence back, but I don't think it's the same in the sense of getting a team to gel as a whole. Which G5 NY6 participants are even left? It's just Boise and Memphis at this point - everyone else is in the Big XII. Not even sure about Tulane with Fritz out the door, they might have just been a flash in the pan.
The thing is they’re probably playing a juggernaut B1G or SEC championship game loser as 5 or 6 seed. Last year that’d be Liberty at Georgia.
I know it’s possible, I just don’t know if there’s enough rounds in the chamber for it to happen before the P4 (or P2 for that matter) tells them they don’t have a seat at the table anymore.
Liberty was also one of the weakest G5 schools to get to a NY6 game in a long time. The biggest problem I see is that G5 schools will probably lose a good bit of their top players to P4 schools in the transfer portal, so they won't have teams with fully developed senior classes like Boise State used to have.
There's the other side of that to where the good G5 teams might get good players from the P4. Kids might be homesick or there is tons of depth at their previous school and they got very little playing time so they went to the G5.
Also, it would be @ the P2 runner up stadium. It’s not a neutral site game, it’s a true road game in what is likely to be one of the more difficult stadiums to play at in the country. Against a motivated P2 team that wants revenge for the CCG loss.
See: Liberty vs Oregon last year for an example of how that plays out at a neutral site (not @Oregon)
Boise State has not been the same since Petersen left though. They're good but they've been more like fringe top 25 level not "don't schedule this team" good.
They haven't had a top 15 finish since Petersen left. In the CFP era how many Boise State teams do you think could win a playoff game?
Best case scenario for a G5 champ would be if they go undefeated with a respectable nonconference win or two, while an underwhelming Big 12 or ACC team gets an upset in their CCG, resulting in the G5 champ being one of the top 4 conference champs and getting the bye.
Then they hope that their opponent in the second round is a team that scored an upset in round 1.
Ooh interesting. The 4 seed does play the 5/12 matchup winner so if the 12 won there’s a decent chance. Although in that scenario it’s probably like a 4 loss Alabama who didn’t have Milroe for 8 games but got healthy for the playoffs and then they wipe the floor with the 4 seed.
CFP has said that the 5th seed will be the highest ranked non champion. In a perfect world one would think the 5th champion would be the 5th seed to get rewarded a home game for winning a championship but no.
I think they did it that way to prevent the G5 team from getting the number 5 seed. There's a good chance the 12 seed is probably a 2 or 3 loss P4 team and the game would be closer than you think.
Its like they designed the system just to avoid anti trust legislation, if they could pick the winners within the playoffs by committee they would.
Oh the G5 won the game? well too bad.
I think I would say that the G5 programs that possibly could have gone on a legit run have all moved up over the past decade or so.
Back when programs like BYU, Cincinnati, Utah, TCU, and UCF were the top G5 teams I would have said it's definitely possible (even if still unlikely). A team like 2008 Utah could have won a 12 team playoff that year.
Those teams have all moved up to the P4 so now the best teams in the G5 just aren't as good as they used to be, on top of having to contend with NIL disadvantages and the transfer portal poaching.
I would honestly be surprised if we see a G5 team ever win more than one game in the 12 team playoff without serious restructuring to a lot of how the sport works.
yeah them agreeing to a playoff after the G5 lost anybody who could actually fuck the system is not an accident.
Now they get the "inclusion" everyone wants and still have a system that guarantees no g5 will ever win.
Honestly I think it was possible for SMU in the NIL era to build themselves into a Gonzaga like program, but now that they’re in the ACC, I just don’t see a G5 left out there that will be able to recruit/spend with the top 25 or so Power programs.
The best shot would be one P4 has a disaster, and a G5 manages to get the first round bye, they pull off one legit upset, then an FSU situation happens to the team they face in the championship.
Agreed. Even the first game upset will be a pretty small chance most seasons (maybe 1/8). Winning more than that would take an exceptionally strong G5 rep combined with a weak P5 lineup and a lot of luck.
I don’t think they’re going to be common at all. The downside to being the G5 team is that you are almost guaranteed to be seeded 12. This means you get to play a true road game at #5, who is likely the runner up B1G or SEC team.
Are you really gonna say that Memphis, Tulane, Liberty, or whatever G5 team gets in will be able to at least somewhat regularly go into Georgia, OSU, Oregon, or Bama and win? Those stadiums are consistently ranked among the hardest places to play, and the G5 team is playing a motivated opponent that wants revenge for the CCG loss, most likely
Here's also a big gut punch to the G5
ND isn't allowed to have a bye. There's a world wherein ND is a top 4 team, but because of not getting a bye they default to the 5 seed to face the 12th seed
I honestly think most years the 5 seed will be better than the 4 seed, since the top 4 seeds are only conference champs
And we saw multiple times in the 4 team era a conference runner up make the playoffs
Yeah, I think it's all dependent on how much talent consolidates. In an average year since the advent of the BCS and playoff, there's only been maybe 3 teams that are "championship caliber", regardless of how many are spending the money to try and be up there. In that respect, it's made it so the drop-off in talent/quality from 3 to 5 has usually been far sharper than the drop-off from 5-15, which is where the G5 champ has normally sit. If everything stays the way it has, the G5 team has a puncher's chance at an upset once or twice a decade.
That said, I have a few misgivings here:
1. Most of those G5s that have made a run at a big boy program in a NY6 bowl have moved up to a P4 conference at this point
2. NIL and the portal mean that when your dudes ball out before their senior year, they're gone to a moneyed program now so it's hard to develop one of those upperclass-laden teams that just works together
3. Expanded access to the playoff field for the rest of the P4 might mean more of a democratization of top talent, meaning the drop-off from 1-11 is not as sharp as it was in previous iterations. That might give us some more parity within the top 15 overall, but I don't think it's going to meaningfully lower the floor of any of those teams to a more gettable point for a top G5 program. If anything, teams 5-11 actually become better.
Those 3 things make me feel like the G5 access now is going to be far more of a ceremonial bloodletting.
Probably not. I'm kind of like you and don't think this format of CFB will be around for long. But the other thing that makes it so tough for a G5 team is that round 1 is a home game for the higher seed. The G5 team is almost always going to be the 12 or 11 seed which means round 1 is probably going to be at the SEC or B1G runner up. Hard to see them winning a big game in Columbus, Ann Arbor, Tuscaloosa, Athens or a place like that.
I think this is the big thing people are forgetting. Its very likely that the 5 seed is the 2nd or 3rd best team in the field. On top of that they will be coming off a loss, focused, and playing at home. I doubt the 5 seed ever loses.
Also added to this is there's a few weeks of prep going into to round one. I've always believed that a big reason for all the blowouts in the first round of the 4 team playoff is that given extra time to prep the better team will almost always figure out how to expose the worse team. 5 vs 12 is probably the biggest gap in the field and they get more time to break down their opponent. That game is going to get ugly.
Yeah exactly, you articulated that well. Maybe they get 5-10 years? It’s hard to say. A team could get lucky and play a 2023 FSU but what are the odds? I can’t imagine a scenario where the 5/6/7 seeds aren’t powerhouses, so the best shot of this happening is for a G5 to earn a 8/9 seed (but again, long shot)
Even if you got 2023 FSU you would have a G5 offensive lineman who is currently working a 9-5 job somewhere lined up against Jared Verse who was a first round pick.
If they double teamed Verse then that leaves a second round pick in Fiske one on one (or free) elsewhere.
Since it's CFB, you know there will be single game upsets, but more often than not it will be ugly and exactly what you expect.
All I hear about is how this is by far, without doubt the most talented Duck team of all-time. It’s very tough to argue this.
Meanwhile, based on natty odds Oregon is #4. Seems fair, I don’t know, I’m certainly not a profitable hunchcapper.
We’ve been this high a few times before, with some pretty big holes that this squad, at least going into the season, doesn’t have.
Point being every elite program is as stacked as damn near possible in this era. The days of Boise or MWC-era Utah being able to scrape together overlooked talent and scheme their way to the top 5 is over.
Liberty wasn’t #12, nowhere near it. SMU was probably a tougher out but they were also nowhere near #12.
A G5 beating the #5 team in a competitive postseason game on the road isn’t happening. Not in 2025. Not in 2026. Not ever unless every bit of toothpaste makes it back into the tube.
A G5 team can absolutely win a game. Underdogs come out on top sometimes. MAAAAYBEE one can win 2 games if all the stars align. That's about as far as I'd think one would go, but I'd sure root for them to keep going
G5s are basically .500 in BCS/CFP games vs power conference competition. You’ll probably have a G5 winning a first round game every other year or so.
Winning the whole thing? Nah. But as a G5 fan let me tell you that isn’t the point. The opportunity matters. And the first round win would make my life as a fan.
The truth is, the gap between the best G5 team in a given year and, say, the gaggle of teams in that 5-12 tier or so isn’t as large as people think. But the gap between it and the top 2-4 teams in a given year is enormous (tbf that’s also the case between the top 2-4 teams in any one year and ANYONE else).
> G5s are basically .500 in BCS/CFP games vs power conference competition. You’ll probably have a G5 winning a first round game every other year or so.
Yes, G5 teams are 9-8 against power conference teams in BCS/NY6 bowls, but to expect that to continue overlooks a few factors:
1. Of those 9 wins, 6 of them came from teams currently in P4 conferences. Teams still in G5 conferences are 3-5.
2. The way the bowl selection process worked previously, the G5 teams that did make BCS/NY6 bowls often got to face one of the weaker P5 teams that made those bowls. In the new 12-team playoff, I think you will more commonly have a G5 team as the #12 seed, getting to face a #5 seed (who very well may be better than the #3/4 seeds who get a bye for winning their conference).
3. The first round games are no longer neutral site games. If the G5 team is the lower seed, they will have to play a true road game, which computer models and oddsmakers generally value at minus 2.5-3.5 points. Of the three wins that current G5 teams have in BCS/NY6 games, one was an OT win (Boise State over OU in 2006) and one was by one point (Tulane over USC in 2022).
4. The new transfer rules and NIL have made it so that G5 teams' top talent are less likely to stay on their teams. I don't think we will see as many G5 programs able to build up strong teams over a few seasons compared to the past.
5. P5 teams often justified their losses in these games by saying they were meaningless bowl games/their players weren't motivated because they missed the playoff/too many players opted out. I think there is less truth to this than those excuse makers claimed, but I still believe it will make some difference in the playoff (particularly when it comes to opt-outs).
I don't think we will see a G5 CFP win every other year moving forward. I think a much more reasonable expectation would be the G5 might win ~25% of these games.
All extremely valid points except for point 1 imo, as I’ve replied elsewhere. Those teams aren’t G5 now but they absolutely had G5 limitations back then.
Otherwise, hard to argue. We’ll see how things shake out. Regardless I’m going to enjoy the current model for the short time I think it’ll last.
> Those teams aren’t G5 now but they absolutely had G5 limitations back then.
Sure, but I don't think overcoming G5 limitations is something that just any program can do. Most of the schools that did it had some combination of a good location for talent and a significant amount of athletic support, and were subsequently poached by bigger conferences. Television markets were certainly one of the most significant factors in that decision, but there's a reason the Big 12 took UCF instead of FAU or Florida International. There's a reason the ACC took SMU instead of UNT.
In 2011 there were 60 teams in the P5 conferences. In 2024 there will be 68 in the P4, and four of the five G5 teams to ever make multiple BCS/NY6 bowls were part of those additions. It isn't as simple as other G5 teams will just step up and take the places of those who left with the same level of success.
UNT football is in a talent-rich area, but they will never have the level of athletic support that TCU had as a G5 that, in addition to other things, allowed them to keep Gary Patterson on staff with five 10+ win seasons under his belt before making a BCS bowl game instead of him being poached much sooner. There are simply going to be fewer G5 teams that can compete with the top level of P5 talent than previously, because the best teams in the G5 aren't in the G5 anymore.
Your mistake is assuming the teams that moved up were always just the top G5 teams. They weren’t. Many of them were pretty bad for a long time. They DID have higher levels of potential thanks to market or corporate donor base but that didn’t stop Louisville and UCF from having 1-10 and 0-12 seasons against CUSA.
Conversely, teams like Boise could go 12-0 forever and never move up. They sort of have already done that. It’s not just about what happens on the field.
I am not assuming they were always the top G5 teams. I know TCU was garbage for years... A&M currently has the second longest active winning streak against a single opponent against TCU thanks their decades of sucking. However, their location, history, donor base, etc. gave them the potential to be a great team. There are some teams that have that potential, and some that just don't.
Kent State, for example, will never compete with the best in college football - it just isn't going to happen. They have finished ranked in the AP poll zero times and have eclipsed 7 wins only three times since 1955 - one of those seasons they played zero P5 schools and two FCS/I-AA schools to get to 8 wins, and the other two of those seasons their coach was poached by a big school either immediately or the following season. They have four wins against P5/AQ teams in their history: 3-8 NC State in 1971, 1-9-1 Kansas in 1987, 3-9 Iowa State in 2007, and 9-4 Rutgers who was in the remnants of the Big East in 2012 that was not really a power conference. That season they beat Rutgers was their best in school history, going 11-2... and losing to 2-10 Kentucky by a score of 47-14.
So if you accept that there are some G5 schools that have the potential to put together a team that can beat top-level college football teams, and some that don't, then the point 1 in my original comment makes sense. Only six G5 teams managed to win a BCS/NY6 bowl in 26 seasons, and four of those six are no longer G5 teams... if we say that there were ~25 G5 teams that had that potential, that number is now down to ~17-19. It's still possible, but it lowers the odds.
Yeah, I’m never going to complain about more college football to watch, but even with the four team playoff, there was a lot of blowouts in the semi final round over the years. The top two or maybe three teams really are a big step above everyone else almost every year.
Spot on that the top G5 in a year is just as good as teams 5-12, problem is the 5 seed is probably going to actually be in that group of 2-4. The best way a G5 wins a game is by getting a 7-10 seed
Does that G5 .500 stat account for G5 teams who moved up to P5 like TCU?
Claiming their stats as part of the G5 overall record seems like it might be overstating potential G5 success going forward.
Otherwise I fully agree with everything else you're saying.
It does include them, yes. And you may certainly be right that this means there won't be as much success going forward. The one counter-argument I'd make to that is programs like Louisville, TCU, Houston, or even Utah weren't what they are now when they were in CUSA or the MWC. They were operating with significantly fewer resources and less access to high-tier recruits, and so on. So it's also not quite accurate to judge, like the TCU of 2009 against the TCU of 2024, you know?
Yeah that 100% makes sense as well.
Also Boise State was a famous BCS buster and is still G5 so it's not necessarily a law that a good G5 program moves to P5/4.
So that .500 could end up holding. I'm curious to see how things go with the new playoffs setup.
I agree that a first round victory against a 5-12 team is going to be feasible even if beating the 1-4 teams is nearly impossible for anyone outside the 1-4.
Yup, in fact some of the programs that have moved into power conferences weren't even necessarily dominant in the G5 leagues -- they were just identified as having characteristics, like market size or potential corporate support, that made them attractive. Louisville, for example, did win the CUSA title their final year in that league, and they were definitely rising, but they went 1-10 playing in CUSA only a few years before that.
Meanwhile my alma mater won almost half of the CUSA titles between its inception and Louisville's departure and hit the AP poll at one point five years in a row, but didn't move up because of factors beyond our control, like market size.
The highlight of my fall as a younger man was watching USM absolutely putting the hurt on Louisville and Memphis. Alabama state champs in 1990 was pretty fun as well-
Why do you think that’s the case? Those teams dealt with all the limitations current “G5” teams have when they were winning those games, especially the most recent ones like UH, UCF, and Cincy.
Part of it is straight up economics of the sport. As an example, back in the 2000s, the record deal at the time was [the 2008 contract between the SEC and ESPN at roughly $11 million per team annually](https://www.espn.com/college-sports/news/story?id=3553033). Now, that contract now pays out [at $55 million per team per year](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2020/12/sec-espn-deal-official-abc-replacing-cbs/), and that's just one gulf that's significantly increased between the P2 and the G5 since the first BCS busters.
Recruiting analytics got a lot more precise and benefitted those in power conferences who could bankroll it, facility upgrades went to power schools who didn't have to worry about enrollment or donor numbers, conference realignment took the best 10 or so G5 schools out of G5 contention by promoting them to P5, and now most G5 schools are way behind the eight-ball now looking at the new system.
The teams in my example had all the same disadvantages, including the portal. I don’t think the sport has changed as much as some make it seem in the last two years.
The portal and NIL weren't as big of a disadvantage back then when you still had to sit for a year. Grad transfers were the only ones who could immediately play, everyone else had to weight the decision of whether their playing time, and ultimately their draft stock, was worth gambling on not getting a year's worth film out there. Nobody was transferring after their Junior year for example, and not many did so after their sophomore unless it was just a bad fit.
I don't think it is, the big deficit for g5 is that they can't recruit anywhere near the same level as the p5 teams due to being in lower conferences. While also making less money due to lower conference payouts. Those disadvantages still existed regardless of if they moved up a conference.
Technically we were only making 2.1 million from the AAC TV deal through our 3 NY6 berths. The 7.5 million deal didn’t start until several years after our last NY6 bid
I'm not saying "it doesn't count". I'm saying "the historically very best G5 programs, many of whom moved up to P5, *may* be statistically better than the remaining top G5 teams on average going forward".
This seems like a textbook survivorship bias situation.
Time will tell. I could be wrong, and I don't feel too strongly about this "hey maybe this statistic is biased" comment.
I'm a big G5 fan (see my flair), but a good number of those F5 schools that make up the almost .500 record in BCS/CFP games are now P4 teams, and leaving the remainder of the G5 field poorer for that.
Doesn't mean that a G5 team can't win (hoping BSU does it this year!), but it does make it even harder, with a chunk of the top of that group scraped off.
A G5 team doesn't have a 5% chance to win each year. If you give a G5 team a 30% chance to win each of the four rounds, their odds of winning the whole thing are less than 1 percent
in my very unbiased opinion, all the conference champions should be guaranteed a home game if they aren’t in the top 4 as a bigger incentive to actually win the conference championship game, which would give G5 a decent chance (and i think it would be really cool to see the G5 teams host). other than that, it won’t happen very often
Depends on what you mean by upset. Could a G5 team win a CFP game in the new format? Absolutely! It’s literally happened before. SEVERAL times. Now could they win a title? Probably not since G5 teams simple won’t have the resources to compete against true powerhouses.
The difference is before when they’ve won it’s been neutral site bowl games where the power conference teams may have had a harder time being motivated. With the G5 team having to win a road playoff game with real stakes, it makes it a lot tougher.
Also there’s the fact that G5 teams now are probably worse relative to power conference playoff teams than they may have been in the past. The transfer portal destroys the G5 starters and depth players, and a lot of the best G5 teams have moved to power conferences.
Absolutely. We saw Tulane beat Heisman season Caleb Williams only 2 years ago. Will a G5 natty happen? The odds aren't zero, but they're not statistically likely. But the prestige comes from the initial upset.
Look at march madness, no one predicts the Mid-Majors to win it all, but we always root for them in the first round. There's first round upsets more iconic than national championships.
Had me until the last line. If the G5 has its own playoff, I'd never want them to be thrown into additional games after lifting a trophy.
Really, I think the four G5 winners who aren't invited to the Playoff should hold their own 4-team postseason. Zero reason why the MAC winner should be sent off to a bowl game that, in an expanded Playoff world, will have even less juice than it has for several years now.
100%.
Boise over OU, Utah over Bama happened in BCS bowls. Different era, but it'll happen.
Barn has already lost to UCF and Houston recently...so they can help New Mexico next to join a P5 conference as well. So nice of them to do that.
Different enough era to make it much harder though. G5’s best players get raided every year now. I’m not saying it can’t/won’t happen, just that there’s probably not enough years left for it to happen.
The only way this COULD happen is if there were 1-2 G5 dynasties that consistently nabbed the 12th spot or perhaps even could sneak in via ranking. That would allow for consistently high-level recruiting that COULD rival many P5 programs with the added benefit of having easier schedules.
I personally don't see that happening when we're consistently seeing good coaches sniped and rosters blown up after a couple successful years. But IF a G5 school can find a way into the playoffs a few times and IF they can find a way to keep their staff and roster stable and IF they can manage a few key upsets then MAYBE we'll see a G5 team go deep in the next 10 years. More likely though they'll get picked up by a Power conference before that even happens.
I think that the access to the play offs for these schools will help not get snipped nearly as much and they will be making more money by being in the play offs so NIL will be improved for G5 Playoff teams which might not pull in transfers but will help keep away the other teams. If You aren't leaving for a playoff spot out for significantly more money than why leave?
Pay G5 to be excluded -> less G5 attention -> G5 talent level lowers -> pay G5 less -> G5 can no longer hang with P4 with less talent -> separate divisions
Something I think people don’t realize, and where college basketball has gotten it right, is the opportunity eventually builds quality. Smaller basketball conferences have seems a few teams rose to power because they consistently are the representative in the dance. This has allowed those schools to recruit better than their counterparts. That’s what will happen if you leave the college football landscape alone for a while. Now to answer the question, they probably won’t leave it alone and ruin it.
In the right positions they can, maybe. Star QB or star edge rusher and you could make some waves. But why would they stay more than a year when bags of cash and other amenities get thrown their way these days?
Was profoundly more likely before the era of the portal, these days I don't think so. Those TCU and Boise State teams in the past would be picked over year to year.
Also keep in mind those G5 teams will be on the road.
Ran the number on this. Going by G5 performance in the CFP/NY6 era they are 4-6 against the power conferences, so 40% win percentage. Given how we know players sit out on both sides for bowl games now I'll mark in half as a G5 school has a 20% chance to win any playoff game against a power program. All this works out to:
- 20% Chance to win 1st round
- 4% Chance to win 1/4 finals
- 0.80% Chance to win semi finals
- 0.16% Chance to run the table for a Natty
- 97.19% Chance we will see a G5 1st Round win in 5 seasons
-1.59% Chance we see a G5 natty in 10 seasons
If we set it to 40%
- 99.97% chance of a G5 win in 5 seasons
- 22.84% Chance of a G5 natty in 10 seasons
And here’s where we see why statistics are only so useful in an analysis like this. The reality of the specific situation for the G5 team in an actual playoff game have to be accounted for. The G5 winner will be the 12 seed (barring an extremely fluky set of circumstances in a given year). The opponent will be the 5 seed, who will always be either the runner up for the SEC or B1G (in contrast to the weakest non-G5 team in the NY6 results referenced above). The game will be played at that 5 seeds home stadium, and winning that game means the winner gets to continue playing for a national title the following week, providing extra motivation for the 5 seed (in stark contrast to the NY6 game results referenced in the above post, where winning meant very little).
There is not a 20% chance that the G5 rep is going into some place like Autzen, Death Valley, Athens, Ann Arbor, Austin, etc. and winning that game. I’d place it as close to zero as possible without outright eliminating the possibility of winning entirely. And the odds of a G5 team winning a national title (ever, not even within 10 years) is exactly zero. They’ve never won when actual games have decided the title, and that’s not going to change no matter how many more years they play this version of college football.
Probably not, in the 12 team format its most likely that the G5 team is going to go up against the best non P4 champion on the road, most likely the runner up of the SEC or Big Ten. Would you have given Liberty much of a chance last season going up against Ohio State in The Shoe or Georgia Between the Hedges?
I also feel that the G5 has largely been gutted of the programs that could consistently produce a team that could pull it off, and with the modern NIL landscape and the transfer portal, I have my doubts the remaining programs could produce such a team.
Yeah that backend of the playoff- where the G5 team will almost certainly also be and therefore they wouldn’t play each other. The middle of the field will be the 2nd/3rd best teams from the B1G/SEC
The real question is how many years will this format be in place, because it's only a matter of time for a G5 to win one of these games. I'd say four years. I know the stakes and the venue and even the teams with realignment will be different, but they won a lot of the Access Bowl games.
I’m extremely confident it will happen when we eventually manage to break out of regular season rut and have our best season since 2003. FAU, Troy or someone will become the first G5 team to advance.
lol you got me - I started the sentence thinking of some big upsets but then realized I listed Auburn and Tennessee, so I took the opportunity to troll our rivals.
Might actually be a greater chance of G5 playoff for the near future. If a G5 is undefeated, might step over, say, the 3rd or 4th best B1G team that might have been 2nd prior to expansion
I thought so before they announced the money split. But the SEC and Big10 got greedy and are taking an outsized cut of the revenue regardless of the number of their teams that get in.
If money was awarded by merit where each conference gets the same amount to split for each team that gets in (as happens with bowls and the NCAA Basketball Tournament) then I think a plucky Tulane backed by a few billionares could put together a team that could upset the field. But now the deck is stacked against even doing that.
I have long been an advocate for expanding the playoffs and giving the G5 a path but the way the money is being handed out leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I guess it's more likely to happen over the next few years. The good thing is that there isn't a month between games being played so we should see less blowouts.
Everyone vastly over estimates the ability of G5 teams.
The reason people talk about 2004 Utah, 2007 Boise St, 2017 UCF being “robbed” for so long is because they won their big games.
Nobody talks about 2023 Liberty being robbed.
Nobody talks about Liberty being robbed because they played a cake ass schedule and regardless of that the people who would be most likely to proclaim a G5 cinderella as "robbed" would be other G5 fans. Pretty much all G5 fans hate Liberty.
All the expanded playoff will mean is a 9-3 Auburn, a 8-4 Alabama (who played an insane schedule), etc. getting in a winning it. G5? Never. This isn't basketball or baseball. A Boise State over OU every 20 years. Sure. Insignificant, will get stomped in the next round.
A deeply flawed P4 team with an easy schedule is bound to wind up at #5 eventually. My bias is showing, but Notre Dame has a history of being vastly overrated when they really shouldn't pass the sniff test, so I think they are the likely victim of a #12/#5 upset. Or a team like Iowa that has won every regular season game by 2 points until their luck runs out and the punter gets hurt in pre-game.
Laughing at the assumption that the G5 champ will automatically be the 5th highest rated conference champ as if in any given year a P4 conference won’t have enough depth that the conference champ might not have 4 losses and a Boise or Memphis go 13-0 and potentially be higher ranked…
The G5 was very successful in the BCS era at knocking off P5 teams. Even if we're assuming P5 teams are going to try harder, no neutral site, etc. I think the 5% is VERY low. I would probably guess the G5 will be half as successful, so about 25% or so. That still puts a natty out of reach, statistically. Even at 50%, if the BCS era record sticks (impossible with now playing the absolute best teams in later rounds), that's a 6% chance. It's basically impossible.
Outsider teams had a winning record in the BCS era, and were nearly even in the CFP era. It will be tougher being on the road rather than at a neutral site, but saying a 5% chance is not a good reflection of the actual past results.
Tulane also beat Kansas State @ Kansas State that year. Kansas State won the Big 12 championship, so Tulane beat 2 teams that would've made a 12 team playoff.
If you're looking for a low seed run for the national championship, come on down to D3.
Just last year the #11 seed just won the whole thing in probably, imo, the best bowl game of the year
Not a chance. Maybe a 12 beats a 5 every few years I guarantee you that most years it's going to be a beatdown. It's only a matter of time before the G5 realizes they're leaving money on the table and starts their own playoff.
I think the only way that this happens is through a crazy and unlikely "perfect storm" scenario. I think the following would be necessary:
-Highly motivated donors with multimillion dollars worth of FU money they wouldn't mind throwing basically a blank check towards the program to recruit
-A highly motivated coach willing to stick it out to build the program as well being at the top of recruiting, grabbing talent from the portal, and coaching Xs and Os
-Highly motivated players who buy into the program (or get bought into). Likely overlooked but highly talented recruits with a bone to pick or high talent transfers with a bone to pick
-Experience: scheduling well in regular season to experience high level P5 teams in a very hostile environment
Even with all of that, I still think they would need a lucky playoff draw with teams that they might be able to match up well against
No, and the reason is simple: By the end of the current contract, the G6 and P4 won't be in the same division of sports. Also, I have no idea why anyone supports an expanded playoff or any of the most recent changes to the sport. A 6-7 team model would've resolved any issues of legitimate teams being 'left-out' of the playoff. Now, there's a real possibility of having 3-4 loss teams making it into the playoff.
As a fan of a G5 school, don’t think most G5 teams have the depth to go all the way.
Would love to see some upsets but when you are talking about 4 big games in about 4 weeks that’s tough to do for a lot of teams outside of maybe the top 15 programs of the last 10 years. Those guys have 4-5 star talent sitting behind 4-5 star talent
I think there's a few programs between the AAC, MWC, and Sun Belt who could produce a team good enough to score a Round 1 upset in the CFP. Would it be the norm? Most likely not. Would it happen within a 5-year or 10-year time frame? Most likely so.
There are two scenarios where I can see a G5 school pulling an upset if not winning it outright:
1) WW3 or some other worldwide military conflict that brings back the draft. The reason for this is to look at the teams that the Army and Navy were able to field during WW2. A lot of the top HS players went to the service academies in WW2 to avoid being drafted or enlisted. In case of an all war that stops short of going nuclear with Russia, China, and others, the service academies might benefit on the football field.
2) A G5 school is able to get a massive piggy bank backing them for a potential move to a P4 conference. An example here would be UNLV. The casinos decide that if they can buy a top 5 team via NIL for UNLV, that potentially could lead to a P4 invite would more than be made up for in the long run by visiting from other power 4 schools. The casinos in Vegas make billions. If they all chipped in 5% of profits, UNLV could field a roster that costs more than NFL teams.
We’ll see an upset eventually. It’s just the nature of variance and sports. We see massive upsets by betting odds and standards every season. So we’ll see one eventually in the playoff.
For a G5 team to make a run in the playoffs (unless they’re the best G5 squad of all time), that would take some serious luck and string of huge upsets, that we’ll likely never see.
With schools having up to 20-something million available to pay players, I doubt we’ll see any G5 team that can compete with a top 25% P4 team because of player acquisition and retention. When a player will shine at Kent State, they’ll be offered a lot of money to leave for a P4 team
We’ve seen teams recently go into ranked opponents and win. One that comes to mind is Troy over LSU. That team had 2 ranked wins and finished with a L vs Notre dame. Not quite playoff worthy team under the new format but they would have been close.
Extremely doubtful. The top crop of cfb teams already gapped the best G5 teams, and that gap has only widened in the NIL era. Best you could hope for as a G5 is an underwhelming matchup in the first round, maybe catch some team with a QB or other significant injury etc in the next round. By the semis/finals the real contenders will be there and I just cant see a G5 team rolling through two more juggernauts.
I honestly don't see it ever happening. G5 is going to be 12th seed pretty much every year and play the 5 seed in an away game. The 5 seed in most years in a top 4 team (p2 runner up) like Georgia was last year. I don't see a g5 team ever winning that in an away game.
I know some people will say forever is a long time, but I just don't see it happening.
I think it would take a special talent at QB, maybe like a second coming of Vick type talent that was over looked early on, or maybe a transfer situation like ole boy that went to Boise State this year.
I think the bosie state fiesta bowl is probably the closet were ever gonna get to this answer. So, my guess would be something along those lines of, made it to the end, but not all the way
I think it’s gonna happen more often than you think. Going all the way is one thing, but the G5 has produced some really good teams in the past. We haven’t had one in a while, but Houston and Cincinnati have given us teams that could take down giants. Every couple years we will get some upsets.
How many times in the past has this even happened? Cincinnati would have done it, is there another time where this happened? Nothing comes to mind for me, at least in the portal era
A one-game upset? Sure, it’s possible. Going on a 4 game run to win it all? Not a chance.
Exactly. Best I could see is 2 wins. Upset in the first round, then maybe play a weaker conference champ in the second round and get another stunner, but by the semis it’ll be all good teams and they won’t stand a chance
Agreed, this isnt basketball. Line up against bigger faster guys week in and week out it will wear you out and take a physical toll. Its not that g5 teams are bad or poorly coached all the time, they just have to make a team out of left over parts generally.
Yup. At a certain point, talent trumps coaching (especially if both teams have at least competent coaches). It doesn’t matter if you give the G5 team Nick Saban as their coach. There’s only so much you can do when the team on the other side is Georgia/Texas/Oregon. They’re just bigger, faster, and stronger than you, and the coaches aren’t going to mess it up that badly.
An aside, absolutely crazy to be included with Georgia and Oregon after the last 15 years.
Hey I felt good being included too! Still hasn’t sunk in minus our Chip years
Not *totally* related but I remember seeing an interview with Mike Singletary that the thing he struggled with the most when he moved to coaching was that he’d draw up plays that would’ve been great when he was with the 85 Bears but the players he was coaching just didn’t have the talent to execute them.
You don’t know how happy it makes me to see Oregon being included in a list of the best teams in CFB
Save a couple seasons - Oregon has been good, if not great, since like 2009. Sure, they never won a title but only 15 teams have in the last 30 years have. That doesn’t mean they haven’t been great. I agree it’s odd to see Oregon, Texas and UGA used as examples as opposed to Ohio St., Michigan, and Alabama.
My worst nightmare
I honestly *almost* feel bad for Washington this year. Losing pretty much every piece of your star offense, your coach, and your best CB transferring to Oregon that sucks.
Yeah It is what it is I guess, there will be growing pains and then we will return to the top 20 program we’ve been. Muhammad transferring to Oregon rly sucks tho
Don't. Going 12-2 with both losses to Washington sucks a lot more. What could've been, you guys probably matched up with Michigan better than we did.
TCU was a pretty close example of this already. Managed to win their conference with 6 year guys, pull off an amazing close upset to just get freaking demolished
The introduction of autobids is like basketball though. I could see someone getting a stranglehold on the G5 autobid like Gonzaga in basketball and then using the recruiting pitch of come here and you’re guaranteed to make the playoff to become a top 15ish team perennially. As I typed that out I realized a football Gonzaga gets added to a P5 immediately.
Yeah and, even a lower P5 is going to have some solid depth A G5 strength is in its starters, and talent usually drops off after that hard just by virtue of... its hard to score talent against some of these guys
Love the flair combo
I don't know how much that remains the case in the NIL/Portal era though. Most of the peak G5s were developmental programs, taking guys that had the right build but were a little rough around the edges and molding them into stars; you normally weren't playing meaningful snaps until your junior year in a lot of those programs. Now if you show promise early, you're gone. Heck, now even if you're a developmental guy and do 3 years, are you going to stick around for your 4th when a blue blood calls offers you a bag after you ball out your junior year? Sure these days you see those teams picking up P4 washouts more and more and getting them their confidence back, but I don't think it's the same in the sense of getting a team to gel as a whole. Which G5 NY6 participants are even left? It's just Boise and Memphis at this point - everyone else is in the Big XII. Not even sure about Tulane with Fritz out the door, they might have just been a flash in the pan.
People think the 12 team playoff will mean "OH SHIT APP STATE CINDERELLA RUN!!!" when it actually means 9-3 Bama getting hot and rolling to a title
Wait, but I liked your first option better
Yeah, it just gives the big brands an extra mulligan or two. UGA would've been in last year. Bama the year before, etc.
hashtag sad face
True, but at least small schools will have a path now. Or even non-SEC teams (thinking of FSU last year).
The thing is they’re probably playing a juggernaut B1G or SEC championship game loser as 5 or 6 seed. Last year that’d be Liberty at Georgia. I know it’s possible, I just don’t know if there’s enough rounds in the chamber for it to happen before the P4 (or P2 for that matter) tells them they don’t have a seat at the table anymore.
Liberty was also one of the weakest G5 schools to get to a NY6 game in a long time. The biggest problem I see is that G5 schools will probably lose a good bit of their top players to P4 schools in the transfer portal, so they won't have teams with fully developed senior classes like Boise State used to have.
There's the other side of that to where the good G5 teams might get good players from the P4. Kids might be homesick or there is tons of depth at their previous school and they got very little playing time so they went to the G5.
Even if that does happen those teams won't have the same kind of team chemistry that comes with 3 or 4 years developing together.
Also, it would be @ the P2 runner up stadium. It’s not a neutral site game, it’s a true road game in what is likely to be one of the more difficult stadiums to play at in the country. Against a motivated P2 team that wants revenge for the CCG loss. See: Liberty vs Oregon last year for an example of how that plays out at a neutral site (not @Oregon)
Lol I’d like to see what would’ve happened if Liberty had to play Oregon at Autzen. They might not have even gotten that first drive
Can only imagine how the 2007 and 2013 Mizzou teams would've fared in this format.
The historical G5 teams that might have been able to win those matchups (and also not be a 17 point underdog) aren't G5 anymore.
Boise State still is
Boise State has not been the same since Petersen left though. They're good but they've been more like fringe top 25 level not "don't schedule this team" good. They haven't had a top 15 finish since Petersen left. In the CFP era how many Boise State teams do you think could win a playoff game?
Boise State is barely that Boise State anymore. Best win they've had in a decade was probably beating a 7-5 Oregon in the Las Vegas Bowl.
Best case scenario for a G5 champ would be if they go undefeated with a respectable nonconference win or two, while an underwhelming Big 12 or ACC team gets an upset in their CCG, resulting in the G5 champ being one of the top 4 conference champs and getting the bye. Then they hope that their opponent in the second round is a team that scored an upset in round 1.
Ooh interesting. The 4 seed does play the 5/12 matchup winner so if the 12 won there’s a decent chance. Although in that scenario it’s probably like a 4 loss Alabama who didn’t have Milroe for 8 games but got healthy for the playoffs and then they wipe the floor with the 4 seed.
Yeah, they’d need something like a 12-seed Kansas State (no offense KSU) upsetting a 5-seed Michigan and then laying a dud against the G5 team
That would be so Michigan lmao
It really depends on if the seeding is pure seeding but you have 5 AQs or do the 5 CC get the 1st thru 5th seed?
CFP has said that the 5th seed will be the highest ranked non champion. In a perfect world one would think the 5th champion would be the 5th seed to get rewarded a home game for winning a championship but no.
Kinda lame. Actually super lame
I think they did it that way to prevent the G5 team from getting the number 5 seed. There's a good chance the 12 seed is probably a 2 or 3 loss P4 team and the game would be closer than you think.
G5 teams deserve to host playoff games.
Its like they designed the system just to avoid anti trust legislation, if they could pick the winners within the playoffs by committee they would. Oh the G5 won the game? well too bad.
I think I would say that the G5 programs that possibly could have gone on a legit run have all moved up over the past decade or so. Back when programs like BYU, Cincinnati, Utah, TCU, and UCF were the top G5 teams I would have said it's definitely possible (even if still unlikely). A team like 2008 Utah could have won a 12 team playoff that year. Those teams have all moved up to the P4 so now the best teams in the G5 just aren't as good as they used to be, on top of having to contend with NIL disadvantages and the transfer portal poaching. I would honestly be surprised if we see a G5 team ever win more than one game in the 12 team playoff without serious restructuring to a lot of how the sport works.
yeah them agreeing to a playoff after the G5 lost anybody who could actually fuck the system is not an accident. Now they get the "inclusion" everyone wants and still have a system that guarantees no g5 will ever win.
Honestly I think it was possible for SMU in the NIL era to build themselves into a Gonzaga like program, but now that they’re in the ACC, I just don’t see a G5 left out there that will be able to recruit/spend with the top 25 or so Power programs.
The best shot would be one P4 has a disaster, and a G5 manages to get the first round bye, they pull off one legit upset, then an FSU situation happens to the team they face in the championship.
Agreed. Even the first game upset will be a pretty small chance most seasons (maybe 1/8). Winning more than that would take an exceptionally strong G5 rep combined with a weak P5 lineup and a lot of luck.
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I don’t think they’re going to be common at all. The downside to being the G5 team is that you are almost guaranteed to be seeded 12. This means you get to play a true road game at #5, who is likely the runner up B1G or SEC team. Are you really gonna say that Memphis, Tulane, Liberty, or whatever G5 team gets in will be able to at least somewhat regularly go into Georgia, OSU, Oregon, or Bama and win? Those stadiums are consistently ranked among the hardest places to play, and the G5 team is playing a motivated opponent that wants revenge for the CCG loss, most likely
Here's also a big gut punch to the G5 ND isn't allowed to have a bye. There's a world wherein ND is a top 4 team, but because of not getting a bye they default to the 5 seed to face the 12th seed I honestly think most years the 5 seed will be better than the 4 seed, since the top 4 seeds are only conference champs And we saw multiple times in the 4 team era a conference runner up make the playoffs
My nightmare/ Dream match up of Fresno State vs ND is on the horizon.
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The economics of the sport is changing.
Yeah, I think it's all dependent on how much talent consolidates. In an average year since the advent of the BCS and playoff, there's only been maybe 3 teams that are "championship caliber", regardless of how many are spending the money to try and be up there. In that respect, it's made it so the drop-off in talent/quality from 3 to 5 has usually been far sharper than the drop-off from 5-15, which is where the G5 champ has normally sit. If everything stays the way it has, the G5 team has a puncher's chance at an upset once or twice a decade. That said, I have a few misgivings here: 1. Most of those G5s that have made a run at a big boy program in a NY6 bowl have moved up to a P4 conference at this point 2. NIL and the portal mean that when your dudes ball out before their senior year, they're gone to a moneyed program now so it's hard to develop one of those upperclass-laden teams that just works together 3. Expanded access to the playoff field for the rest of the P4 might mean more of a democratization of top talent, meaning the drop-off from 1-11 is not as sharp as it was in previous iterations. That might give us some more parity within the top 15 overall, but I don't think it's going to meaningfully lower the floor of any of those teams to a more gettable point for a top G5 program. If anything, teams 5-11 actually become better. Those 3 things make me feel like the G5 access now is going to be far more of a ceremonial bloodletting.
Probably not. I'm kind of like you and don't think this format of CFB will be around for long. But the other thing that makes it so tough for a G5 team is that round 1 is a home game for the higher seed. The G5 team is almost always going to be the 12 or 11 seed which means round 1 is probably going to be at the SEC or B1G runner up. Hard to see them winning a big game in Columbus, Ann Arbor, Tuscaloosa, Athens or a place like that.
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You wouldn't have to worry about that, FCS teams aren't eligible for the playoff
September 1, 2007. Appalachian State 34 Michigan 31 in Ann Arbor. I witnessed it in person. Appalachian State was FCS back then.
I think this is the big thing people are forgetting. Its very likely that the 5 seed is the 2nd or 3rd best team in the field. On top of that they will be coming off a loss, focused, and playing at home. I doubt the 5 seed ever loses.
Also added to this is there's a few weeks of prep going into to round one. I've always believed that a big reason for all the blowouts in the first round of the 4 team playoff is that given extra time to prep the better team will almost always figure out how to expose the worse team. 5 vs 12 is probably the biggest gap in the field and they get more time to break down their opponent. That game is going to get ugly.
5 seed could very well be an undefeated Notre Dame lmao
Point still stands i think. Undefeated Notre Dame is probably better than the Big 12/ACC champ
Yeah exactly, you articulated that well. Maybe they get 5-10 years? It’s hard to say. A team could get lucky and play a 2023 FSU but what are the odds? I can’t imagine a scenario where the 5/6/7 seeds aren’t powerhouses, so the best shot of this happening is for a G5 to earn a 8/9 seed (but again, long shot)
Even if you got 2023 FSU you would have a G5 offensive lineman who is currently working a 9-5 job somewhere lined up against Jared Verse who was a first round pick. If they double teamed Verse then that leaves a second round pick in Fiske one on one (or free) elsewhere. Since it's CFB, you know there will be single game upsets, but more often than not it will be ugly and exactly what you expect.
All I hear about is how this is by far, without doubt the most talented Duck team of all-time. It’s very tough to argue this. Meanwhile, based on natty odds Oregon is #4. Seems fair, I don’t know, I’m certainly not a profitable hunchcapper. We’ve been this high a few times before, with some pretty big holes that this squad, at least going into the season, doesn’t have. Point being every elite program is as stacked as damn near possible in this era. The days of Boise or MWC-era Utah being able to scrape together overlooked talent and scheme their way to the top 5 is over. Liberty wasn’t #12, nowhere near it. SMU was probably a tougher out but they were also nowhere near #12. A G5 beating the #5 team in a competitive postseason game on the road isn’t happening. Not in 2025. Not in 2026. Not ever unless every bit of toothpaste makes it back into the tube.
A G5 team can absolutely win a game. Underdogs come out on top sometimes. MAAAAYBEE one can win 2 games if all the stars align. That's about as far as I'd think one would go, but I'd sure root for them to keep going
G5s are basically .500 in BCS/CFP games vs power conference competition. You’ll probably have a G5 winning a first round game every other year or so. Winning the whole thing? Nah. But as a G5 fan let me tell you that isn’t the point. The opportunity matters. And the first round win would make my life as a fan. The truth is, the gap between the best G5 team in a given year and, say, the gaggle of teams in that 5-12 tier or so isn’t as large as people think. But the gap between it and the top 2-4 teams in a given year is enormous (tbf that’s also the case between the top 2-4 teams in any one year and ANYONE else).
> G5s are basically .500 in BCS/CFP games vs power conference competition. You’ll probably have a G5 winning a first round game every other year or so. Yes, G5 teams are 9-8 against power conference teams in BCS/NY6 bowls, but to expect that to continue overlooks a few factors: 1. Of those 9 wins, 6 of them came from teams currently in P4 conferences. Teams still in G5 conferences are 3-5. 2. The way the bowl selection process worked previously, the G5 teams that did make BCS/NY6 bowls often got to face one of the weaker P5 teams that made those bowls. In the new 12-team playoff, I think you will more commonly have a G5 team as the #12 seed, getting to face a #5 seed (who very well may be better than the #3/4 seeds who get a bye for winning their conference). 3. The first round games are no longer neutral site games. If the G5 team is the lower seed, they will have to play a true road game, which computer models and oddsmakers generally value at minus 2.5-3.5 points. Of the three wins that current G5 teams have in BCS/NY6 games, one was an OT win (Boise State over OU in 2006) and one was by one point (Tulane over USC in 2022). 4. The new transfer rules and NIL have made it so that G5 teams' top talent are less likely to stay on their teams. I don't think we will see as many G5 programs able to build up strong teams over a few seasons compared to the past. 5. P5 teams often justified their losses in these games by saying they were meaningless bowl games/their players weren't motivated because they missed the playoff/too many players opted out. I think there is less truth to this than those excuse makers claimed, but I still believe it will make some difference in the playoff (particularly when it comes to opt-outs). I don't think we will see a G5 CFP win every other year moving forward. I think a much more reasonable expectation would be the G5 might win ~25% of these games.
All extremely valid points except for point 1 imo, as I’ve replied elsewhere. Those teams aren’t G5 now but they absolutely had G5 limitations back then. Otherwise, hard to argue. We’ll see how things shake out. Regardless I’m going to enjoy the current model for the short time I think it’ll last.
> Those teams aren’t G5 now but they absolutely had G5 limitations back then. Sure, but I don't think overcoming G5 limitations is something that just any program can do. Most of the schools that did it had some combination of a good location for talent and a significant amount of athletic support, and were subsequently poached by bigger conferences. Television markets were certainly one of the most significant factors in that decision, but there's a reason the Big 12 took UCF instead of FAU or Florida International. There's a reason the ACC took SMU instead of UNT. In 2011 there were 60 teams in the P5 conferences. In 2024 there will be 68 in the P4, and four of the five G5 teams to ever make multiple BCS/NY6 bowls were part of those additions. It isn't as simple as other G5 teams will just step up and take the places of those who left with the same level of success. UNT football is in a talent-rich area, but they will never have the level of athletic support that TCU had as a G5 that, in addition to other things, allowed them to keep Gary Patterson on staff with five 10+ win seasons under his belt before making a BCS bowl game instead of him being poached much sooner. There are simply going to be fewer G5 teams that can compete with the top level of P5 talent than previously, because the best teams in the G5 aren't in the G5 anymore.
Your mistake is assuming the teams that moved up were always just the top G5 teams. They weren’t. Many of them were pretty bad for a long time. They DID have higher levels of potential thanks to market or corporate donor base but that didn’t stop Louisville and UCF from having 1-10 and 0-12 seasons against CUSA. Conversely, teams like Boise could go 12-0 forever and never move up. They sort of have already done that. It’s not just about what happens on the field.
I am not assuming they were always the top G5 teams. I know TCU was garbage for years... A&M currently has the second longest active winning streak against a single opponent against TCU thanks their decades of sucking. However, their location, history, donor base, etc. gave them the potential to be a great team. There are some teams that have that potential, and some that just don't. Kent State, for example, will never compete with the best in college football - it just isn't going to happen. They have finished ranked in the AP poll zero times and have eclipsed 7 wins only three times since 1955 - one of those seasons they played zero P5 schools and two FCS/I-AA schools to get to 8 wins, and the other two of those seasons their coach was poached by a big school either immediately or the following season. They have four wins against P5/AQ teams in their history: 3-8 NC State in 1971, 1-9-1 Kansas in 1987, 3-9 Iowa State in 2007, and 9-4 Rutgers who was in the remnants of the Big East in 2012 that was not really a power conference. That season they beat Rutgers was their best in school history, going 11-2... and losing to 2-10 Kentucky by a score of 47-14. So if you accept that there are some G5 schools that have the potential to put together a team that can beat top-level college football teams, and some that don't, then the point 1 in my original comment makes sense. Only six G5 teams managed to win a BCS/NY6 bowl in 26 seasons, and four of those six are no longer G5 teams... if we say that there were ~25 G5 teams that had that potential, that number is now down to ~17-19. It's still possible, but it lowers the odds.
Yeah, I’m never going to complain about more college football to watch, but even with the four team playoff, there was a lot of blowouts in the semi final round over the years. The top two or maybe three teams really are a big step above everyone else almost every year.
Spot on that the top G5 in a year is just as good as teams 5-12, problem is the 5 seed is probably going to actually be in that group of 2-4. The best way a G5 wins a game is by getting a 7-10 seed
Yep, no one knows better than Cincy what it’s like to play a top 4 team consistently in a NY6 bowl, especially as a G5 team
Does that G5 .500 stat account for G5 teams who moved up to P5 like TCU? Claiming their stats as part of the G5 overall record seems like it might be overstating potential G5 success going forward. Otherwise I fully agree with everything else you're saying.
It does include them, yes. And you may certainly be right that this means there won't be as much success going forward. The one counter-argument I'd make to that is programs like Louisville, TCU, Houston, or even Utah weren't what they are now when they were in CUSA or the MWC. They were operating with significantly fewer resources and less access to high-tier recruits, and so on. So it's also not quite accurate to judge, like the TCU of 2009 against the TCU of 2024, you know?
Yeah that 100% makes sense as well. Also Boise State was a famous BCS buster and is still G5 so it's not necessarily a law that a good G5 program moves to P5/4. So that .500 could end up holding. I'm curious to see how things go with the new playoffs setup. I agree that a first round victory against a 5-12 team is going to be feasible even if beating the 1-4 teams is nearly impossible for anyone outside the 1-4.
Yup, in fact some of the programs that have moved into power conferences weren't even necessarily dominant in the G5 leagues -- they were just identified as having characteristics, like market size or potential corporate support, that made them attractive. Louisville, for example, did win the CUSA title their final year in that league, and they were definitely rising, but they went 1-10 playing in CUSA only a few years before that. Meanwhile my alma mater won almost half of the CUSA titles between its inception and Louisville's departure and hit the AP poll at one point five years in a row, but didn't move up because of factors beyond our control, like market size.
The highlight of my fall as a younger man was watching USM absolutely putting the hurt on Louisville and Memphis. Alabama state champs in 1990 was pretty fun as well-
Why do you think that’s the case? Those teams dealt with all the limitations current “G5” teams have when they were winning those games, especially the most recent ones like UH, UCF, and Cincy.
Part of it is straight up economics of the sport. As an example, back in the 2000s, the record deal at the time was [the 2008 contract between the SEC and ESPN at roughly $11 million per team annually](https://www.espn.com/college-sports/news/story?id=3553033). Now, that contract now pays out [at $55 million per team per year](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2020/12/sec-espn-deal-official-abc-replacing-cbs/), and that's just one gulf that's significantly increased between the P2 and the G5 since the first BCS busters. Recruiting analytics got a lot more precise and benefitted those in power conferences who could bankroll it, facility upgrades went to power schools who didn't have to worry about enrollment or donor numbers, conference realignment took the best 10 or so G5 schools out of G5 contention by promoting them to P5, and now most G5 schools are way behind the eight-ball now looking at the new system.
The teams in my example had all the same disadvantages, including the portal. I don’t think the sport has changed as much as some make it seem in the last two years.
The portal and NIL weren't as big of a disadvantage back then when you still had to sit for a year. Grad transfers were the only ones who could immediately play, everyone else had to weight the decision of whether their playing time, and ultimately their draft stock, was worth gambling on not getting a year's worth film out there. Nobody was transferring after their Junior year for example, and not many did so after their sophomore unless it was just a bad fit.
I don't think it is, the big deficit for g5 is that they can't recruit anywhere near the same level as the p5 teams due to being in lower conferences. While also making less money due to lower conference payouts. Those disadvantages still existed regardless of if they moved up a conference.
UCF was 2-1 in NY6 as a G5 while getting paid less than $5m a year from the AAC TV rights... it counts lol
Technically we were only making 2.1 million from the AAC TV deal through our 3 NY6 berths. The 7.5 million deal didn’t start until several years after our last NY6 bid
Think the last payout was 8.5m and nearly 100% increase if my memory serves me correctly
I'm not saying "it doesn't count". I'm saying "the historically very best G5 programs, many of whom moved up to P5, *may* be statistically better than the remaining top G5 teams on average going forward". This seems like a textbook survivorship bias situation. Time will tell. I could be wrong, and I don't feel too strongly about this "hey maybe this statistic is biased" comment.
I'm a big G5 fan (see my flair), but a good number of those F5 schools that make up the almost .500 record in BCS/CFP games are now P4 teams, and leaving the remainder of the G5 field poorer for that. Doesn't mean that a G5 team can't win (hoping BSU does it this year!), but it does make it even harder, with a chunk of the top of that group scraped off.
A G5 team doesn't have a 5% chance to win each year. If you give a G5 team a 30% chance to win each of the four rounds, their odds of winning the whole thing are less than 1 percent
Sorry, edited for more clarity but I’m talking about just a round 1 upset.
This is a good lesson. If someone, at the beginning of the season, offers you an "X vs The Field" bet, taking the field is rarely the wrong move.
In statistics the most likely outcome isn't necessarily a likely outcome.
in my very unbiased opinion, all the conference champions should be guaranteed a home game if they aren’t in the top 4 as a bigger incentive to actually win the conference championship game, which would give G5 a decent chance (and i think it would be really cool to see the G5 teams host). other than that, it won’t happen very often
Depends on what you mean by upset. Could a G5 team win a CFP game in the new format? Absolutely! It’s literally happened before. SEVERAL times. Now could they win a title? Probably not since G5 teams simple won’t have the resources to compete against true powerhouses.
The difference is before when they’ve won it’s been neutral site bowl games where the power conference teams may have had a harder time being motivated. With the G5 team having to win a road playoff game with real stakes, it makes it a lot tougher. Also there’s the fact that G5 teams now are probably worse relative to power conference playoff teams than they may have been in the past. The transfer portal destroys the G5 starters and depth players, and a lot of the best G5 teams have moved to power conferences.
Absolutely. We saw Tulane beat Heisman season Caleb Williams only 2 years ago. Will a G5 natty happen? The odds aren't zero, but they're not statistically likely. But the prestige comes from the initial upset. Look at march madness, no one predicts the Mid-Majors to win it all, but we always root for them in the first round. There's first round upsets more iconic than national championships.
Yes. And that team will be App State /hj
People really don't understand this family are Georgia Southern grads and we know to fear App State as others feared GS as well.
Had me until the last line. If the G5 has its own playoff, I'd never want them to be thrown into additional games after lifting a trophy. Really, I think the four G5 winners who aren't invited to the Playoff should hold their own 4-team postseason. Zero reason why the MAC winner should be sent off to a bowl game that, in an expanded Playoff world, will have even less juice than it has for several years now.
100%. Boise over OU, Utah over Bama happened in BCS bowls. Different era, but it'll happen. Barn has already lost to UCF and Houston recently...so they can help New Mexico next to join a P5 conference as well. So nice of them to do that.
Different enough era to make it much harder though. G5’s best players get raided every year now. I’m not saying it can’t/won’t happen, just that there’s probably not enough years left for it to happen.
Yet Ashton Jeanty ~~lives~~ remains a Bronco.
Different era. With the transfer portal no way. Also Boise and Utah had coaches that stayed there a long time.
Petersen won the Fiesta Bowl in his first season as HC, I think. Harsin did, too.
AAC champion will pull it off
The only way this COULD happen is if there were 1-2 G5 dynasties that consistently nabbed the 12th spot or perhaps even could sneak in via ranking. That would allow for consistently high-level recruiting that COULD rival many P5 programs with the added benefit of having easier schedules. I personally don't see that happening when we're consistently seeing good coaches sniped and rosters blown up after a couple successful years. But IF a G5 school can find a way into the playoffs a few times and IF they can find a way to keep their staff and roster stable and IF they can manage a few key upsets then MAYBE we'll see a G5 team go deep in the next 10 years. More likely though they'll get picked up by a Power conference before that even happens.
I think that the access to the play offs for these schools will help not get snipped nearly as much and they will be making more money by being in the play offs so NIL will be improved for G5 Playoff teams which might not pull in transfers but will help keep away the other teams. If You aren't leaving for a playoff spot out for significantly more money than why leave?
The Powers That Be will do everything they can to exclude the G5.
Would not be surprised in the slightest if they try to pay the G5 into accepting their own playoff once a P4 team gets upset
Pay G5 to be excluded -> less G5 attention -> G5 talent level lowers -> pay G5 less -> G5 can no longer hang with P4 with less talent -> separate divisions
Would not be surprised in the slightest if they try to pay the G5 into accepting their own playoff once a P4 team gets upset
Something I think people don’t realize, and where college basketball has gotten it right, is the opportunity eventually builds quality. Smaller basketball conferences have seems a few teams rose to power because they consistently are the representative in the dance. This has allowed those schools to recruit better than their counterparts. That’s what will happen if you leave the college football landscape alone for a while. Now to answer the question, they probably won’t leave it alone and ruin it.
In basketball one star can carry you, football not so much
In the right positions they can, maybe. Star QB or star edge rusher and you could make some waves. But why would they stay more than a year when bags of cash and other amenities get thrown their way these days?
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I think it means Gackson Five
Was profoundly more likely before the era of the portal, these days I don't think so. Those TCU and Boise State teams in the past would be picked over year to year. Also keep in mind those G5 teams will be on the road.
Ran the number on this. Going by G5 performance in the CFP/NY6 era they are 4-6 against the power conferences, so 40% win percentage. Given how we know players sit out on both sides for bowl games now I'll mark in half as a G5 school has a 20% chance to win any playoff game against a power program. All this works out to: - 20% Chance to win 1st round - 4% Chance to win 1/4 finals - 0.80% Chance to win semi finals - 0.16% Chance to run the table for a Natty - 97.19% Chance we will see a G5 1st Round win in 5 seasons -1.59% Chance we see a G5 natty in 10 seasons If we set it to 40% - 99.97% chance of a G5 win in 5 seasons - 22.84% Chance of a G5 natty in 10 seasons
See P4, the numbers don't lie, and they spell disaster for you in the CFP.
And here’s where we see why statistics are only so useful in an analysis like this. The reality of the specific situation for the G5 team in an actual playoff game have to be accounted for. The G5 winner will be the 12 seed (barring an extremely fluky set of circumstances in a given year). The opponent will be the 5 seed, who will always be either the runner up for the SEC or B1G (in contrast to the weakest non-G5 team in the NY6 results referenced above). The game will be played at that 5 seeds home stadium, and winning that game means the winner gets to continue playing for a national title the following week, providing extra motivation for the 5 seed (in stark contrast to the NY6 game results referenced in the above post, where winning meant very little). There is not a 20% chance that the G5 rep is going into some place like Autzen, Death Valley, Athens, Ann Arbor, Austin, etc. and winning that game. I’d place it as close to zero as possible without outright eliminating the possibility of winning entirely. And the odds of a G5 team winning a national title (ever, not even within 10 years) is exactly zero. They’ve never won when actual games have decided the title, and that’s not going to change no matter how many more years they play this version of college football.
Probably not, in the 12 team format its most likely that the G5 team is going to go up against the best non P4 champion on the road, most likely the runner up of the SEC or Big Ten. Would you have given Liberty much of a chance last season going up against Ohio State in The Shoe or Georgia Between the Hedges? I also feel that the G5 has largely been gutted of the programs that could consistently produce a team that could pull it off, and with the modern NIL landscape and the transfer portal, I have my doubts the remaining programs could produce such a team.
Transfer portal will eliminate this possibility, if it hasn’t already.
Round 1? They’re gonna let such mediocre schools into the back-end of this overly large playoff that plenty of G5 schools will be favored outright.
Yeah that backend of the playoff- where the G5 team will almost certainly also be and therefore they wouldn’t play each other. The middle of the field will be the 2nd/3rd best teams from the B1G/SEC
100% People give so much credit to middle of the road P4 teams that the first G5 Win will completely shatter their minds
The real question is how many years will this format be in place, because it's only a matter of time for a G5 to win one of these games. I'd say four years. I know the stakes and the venue and even the teams with realignment will be different, but they won a lot of the Access Bowl games.
I’m extremely confident it will happen when we eventually manage to break out of regular season rut and have our best season since 2003. FAU, Troy or someone will become the first G5 team to advance.
Im not sure if I should be offended at the Citadel comment or appreciative that you think we have a massive and hostile stadium
lol you got me - I started the sentence thinking of some big upsets but then realized I listed Auburn and Tennessee, so I took the opportunity to troll our rivals.
I applaud how subtle it was, and can look back on it and laugh now that the bad man is gone
Might actually be a greater chance of G5 playoff for the near future. If a G5 is undefeated, might step over, say, the 3rd or 4th best B1G team that might have been 2nd prior to expansion
I thought so before they announced the money split. But the SEC and Big10 got greedy and are taking an outsized cut of the revenue regardless of the number of their teams that get in. If money was awarded by merit where each conference gets the same amount to split for each team that gets in (as happens with bowls and the NCAA Basketball Tournament) then I think a plucky Tulane backed by a few billionares could put together a team that could upset the field. But now the deck is stacked against even doing that. I have long been an advocate for expanding the playoffs and giving the G5 a path but the way the money is being handed out leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I guess it's more likely to happen over the next few years. The good thing is that there isn't a month between games being played so we should see less blowouts.
Everyone vastly over estimates the ability of G5 teams. The reason people talk about 2004 Utah, 2007 Boise St, 2017 UCF being “robbed” for so long is because they won their big games. Nobody talks about 2023 Liberty being robbed.
Nobody talks about Liberty being robbed because they played a cake ass schedule and regardless of that the people who would be most likely to proclaim a G5 cinderella as "robbed" would be other G5 fans. Pretty much all G5 fans hate Liberty.
A team could surely win one game - then probably lose by 40 the next. The odds of a G5 winning 4 in a row against that competition is 0.00%
Boise state beating Texas would obligate me to celebrate in unholy ways
All the expanded playoff will mean is a 9-3 Auburn, a 8-4 Alabama (who played an insane schedule), etc. getting in a winning it. G5? Never. This isn't basketball or baseball. A Boise State over OU every 20 years. Sure. Insignificant, will get stomped in the next round.
“Dad, what was Kellen Moore Boise State like?”
Case point: Ohio loses QB Kurtis Rourke the MAC offensive player of the year to Indiana.
A deeply flawed P4 team with an easy schedule is bound to wind up at #5 eventually. My bias is showing, but Notre Dame has a history of being vastly overrated when they really shouldn't pass the sniff test, so I think they are the likely victim of a #12/#5 upset. Or a team like Iowa that has won every regular season game by 2 points until their luck runs out and the punter gets hurt in pre-game.
The irony of a Penn State flair claiming ND is vastly overrated all the time is simply too rich.
Takes one to know one? Both programs have a century long history of padding stats by scheduling Little Sisters of the Poor. Also, flair up
Laughing at the assumption that the G5 champ will automatically be the 5th highest rated conference champ as if in any given year a P4 conference won’t have enough depth that the conference champ might not have 4 losses and a Boise or Memphis go 13-0 and potentially be higher ranked…
The G5 was very successful in the BCS era at knocking off P5 teams. Even if we're assuming P5 teams are going to try harder, no neutral site, etc. I think the 5% is VERY low. I would probably guess the G5 will be half as successful, so about 25% or so. That still puts a natty out of reach, statistically. Even at 50%, if the BCS era record sticks (impossible with now playing the absolute best teams in later rounds), that's a 6% chance. It's basically impossible.
Outsider teams had a winning record in the BCS era, and were nearly even in the CFP era. It will be tougher being on the road rather than at a neutral site, but saying a 5% chance is not a good reflection of the actual past results.
What do you consider a huge upset? Because Tulane beating USC a couple years ago was a pretty big upset, in my opinion. Yes, it can happen again.
Tulane also beat Kansas State @ Kansas State that year. Kansas State won the Big 12 championship, so Tulane beat 2 teams that would've made a 12 team playoff.
No
If you're looking for a low seed run for the national championship, come on down to D3. Just last year the #11 seed just won the whole thing in probably, imo, the best bowl game of the year
Not a chance. Maybe a 12 beats a 5 every few years I guarantee you that most years it's going to be a beatdown. It's only a matter of time before the G5 realizes they're leaving money on the table and starts their own playoff.
The G5 will be spun off at some point.
Welcome to the NCAAF NIT
And State will be joining us in due time
Not the flex you thought it was because I tend to agree. There will be a system of promotion and relegation eventually.
Doubtful, but nothing’s impossible
I think the only way that this happens is through a crazy and unlikely "perfect storm" scenario. I think the following would be necessary: -Highly motivated donors with multimillion dollars worth of FU money they wouldn't mind throwing basically a blank check towards the program to recruit -A highly motivated coach willing to stick it out to build the program as well being at the top of recruiting, grabbing talent from the portal, and coaching Xs and Os -Highly motivated players who buy into the program (or get bought into). Likely overlooked but highly talented recruits with a bone to pick or high talent transfers with a bone to pick -Experience: scheduling well in regular season to experience high level P5 teams in a very hostile environment Even with all of that, I still think they would need a lucky playoff draw with teams that they might be able to match up well against
SD State and Boise State would have made it in at diff times if the format had existed. Boise St. has elevated since, SD State went crawling back.
No, and the reason is simple: By the end of the current contract, the G6 and P4 won't be in the same division of sports. Also, I have no idea why anyone supports an expanded playoff or any of the most recent changes to the sport. A 6-7 team model would've resolved any issues of legitimate teams being 'left-out' of the playoff. Now, there's a real possibility of having 3-4 loss teams making it into the playoff.
Yes, when we become a farm team for the nearby Big 12 teams who want their underclassmen to get game experience.
A small school that pays NIL money, yes
As a fan of a G5 school, don’t think most G5 teams have the depth to go all the way. Would love to see some upsets but when you are talking about 4 big games in about 4 weeks that’s tough to do for a lot of teams outside of maybe the top 15 programs of the last 10 years. Those guys have 4-5 star talent sitting behind 4-5 star talent
Yes
The 12-team playoff will last two years at most. We’re more likely to have a super league than a G5 winner by the time it’s over.
I think there's a few programs between the AAC, MWC, and Sun Belt who could produce a team good enough to score a Round 1 upset in the CFP. Would it be the norm? Most likely not. Would it happen within a 5-year or 10-year time frame? Most likely so.
There are two scenarios where I can see a G5 school pulling an upset if not winning it outright: 1) WW3 or some other worldwide military conflict that brings back the draft. The reason for this is to look at the teams that the Army and Navy were able to field during WW2. A lot of the top HS players went to the service academies in WW2 to avoid being drafted or enlisted. In case of an all war that stops short of going nuclear with Russia, China, and others, the service academies might benefit on the football field. 2) A G5 school is able to get a massive piggy bank backing them for a potential move to a P4 conference. An example here would be UNLV. The casinos decide that if they can buy a top 5 team via NIL for UNLV, that potentially could lead to a P4 invite would more than be made up for in the long run by visiting from other power 4 schools. The casinos in Vegas make billions. If they all chipped in 5% of profits, UNLV could field a roster that costs more than NFL teams.
No chance anymore.
We’ll see an upset eventually. It’s just the nature of variance and sports. We see massive upsets by betting odds and standards every season. So we’ll see one eventually in the playoff. For a G5 team to make a run in the playoffs (unless they’re the best G5 squad of all time), that would take some serious luck and string of huge upsets, that we’ll likely never see.
With schools having up to 20-something million available to pay players, I doubt we’ll see any G5 team that can compete with a top 25% P4 team because of player acquisition and retention. When a player will shine at Kent State, they’ll be offered a lot of money to leave for a P4 team
This is a just a question of how long the g6 will have access to the playoff. Because of course an upset would eventually happen.
We’ve seen teams recently go into ranked opponents and win. One that comes to mind is Troy over LSU. That team had 2 ranked wins and finished with a L vs Notre dame. Not quite playoff worthy team under the new format but they would have been close.
Extremely doubtful. The top crop of cfb teams already gapped the best G5 teams, and that gap has only widened in the NIL era. Best you could hope for as a G5 is an underwhelming matchup in the first round, maybe catch some team with a QB or other significant injury etc in the next round. By the semis/finals the real contenders will be there and I just cant see a G5 team rolling through two more juggernauts.
One game-absolutely. Cincinnati didn’t get completely boat raced by Alabama in the playoff.
Maybe 2009 Boise State? They at least would have put up a fight against the 2009 Alabama team that won the national title.
A g5 team even making the finals would *cause* the format change to go faster imo
It’ll happen once in a while. Never in a final game, given financial disparity from paying players and Big 2 conferences.
You know what they say about a headline that asks a question...
I honestly don't see it ever happening. G5 is going to be 12th seed pretty much every year and play the 5 seed in an away game. The 5 seed in most years in a top 4 team (p2 runner up) like Georgia was last year. I don't see a g5 team ever winning that in an away game. I know some people will say forever is a long time, but I just don't see it happening.
No
I think it would take a special talent at QB, maybe like a second coming of Vick type talent that was over looked early on, or maybe a transfer situation like ole boy that went to Boise State this year.
I think the bosie state fiesta bowl is probably the closet were ever gonna get to this answer. So, my guess would be something along those lines of, made it to the end, but not all the way
I think Boise during its peak could have but I don’t think we are going to see another G5 go on a crazy run like that too often in this era.
It depends on what you mean. Yes I think some 12 seed could win a game. No I don't think they'll ever win it all.
No. No one would allow it to happen.
NO.
I think it’s gonna happen more often than you think. Going all the way is one thing, but the G5 has produced some really good teams in the past. We haven’t had one in a while, but Houston and Cincinnati have given us teams that could take down giants. Every couple years we will get some upsets.
Colorado is close to G5 still so maybe they can make a run one day....yeah probably not
People keep saying G5 would be the 12 seed but they could be a top 4 seed if they happen to have a higher ranking than say Big 12 or ACC winner.
Which has an extremely low chance of happening, especially now that divisions aren't a thing and the CC are the 2 best teams in the conference.
How many times in the past has this even happened? Cincinnati would have done it, is there another time where this happened? Nothing comes to mind for me, at least in the portal era