Group of Five: Week 6 Access Bowl Power Rankings

Navy toppled Houston and completely reconfigured the American Athletic Conference race. How did it impact the Group of Five race for the Access Bowl bid?

We had the opportunity to finally see how the College Football Playoff would handle a highly-ranked and undefeated Group of Five conference champion. Houston had already knocked off an Oklahoma team that is increasingly looking like one of the more dangerous squads in the Big 12. They still have a looming opportunity to take down Lamar Jackson and Louisville. But the chance to make serious noise this season came tumbling down as fast as Navy could put points on the board.

We had our first seismic shift in the Group of Five power rankings this week as Houston fell 46-40 to the Midshipmen on Saturday. We also saw Southern Miss, Eastern Michigan, and Georgia Southern all sustain their second losses of the season, pushing them further down the hierarchy and out of the scope of our study for now. But the truly impactful result occurred in Annapolis, as the American Athletic Conference race was thrown on its head and the Cougars were left wondering if they even have a shot at returning to a New Year’s Six bowl game.

After six weeks of the season we are down to just one dozen teams that have one loss or fewer. Only two unbeaten mid-majors remain. At this point we are left with a Battle of the Broncos rather than a Coronation of the Cougars. So now that we’ve reached the halfway point of 2016, let’s look at the 12 contenders standing in our Week 6 Group of Five Access Bowl Power Rankings.