College Football: 10 biggest storylines heading into 2017

From the water cooler to labor day cookouts, you’ll be talking about these 10 college football storylines with friends and enemies alike. 

They’re on the cover of magazines, they’re featured in every preview and they are what you need to be paying attention to when prepping for the college football season.

Most of the major storylines you already know from conference supremacy to who has a chance to win the Heisman. However, when you look at the entire college football universe you will see that there is much more than that to watch this coming season.

Here are 10 storylines that I will be watching during the 2017 college football season.

10. Best chance for the Group of Five to sneak in the playoff?

The New Year’s Six has done wonders to the non-power five conferences or as they’re commonly known, the Group of Five. They are the schools like Boise State, Houston and Western Michigan who have seen their fortunes grow because of what they’ve done in the New Year’s Six. However, the New Year’s Six is not the only thing these schools want to be apart of and the CFP selection committee knows it.

It has become increasingly tougher for schools that are in the “Group of Five” to reach the playoff. With few chances outside of the one slot that they’ve been given in the New Year’s Six, you have to hope your schedule aligns with a complete meltdown atop the CFP Committee’s rankings.

Ever since the playoff era began in 2014, we’ve seen no team from a “Group of Five” conference be ranked in the top four at any point in the rankings. The highest a team ever got was Memphis who was ranked 13th in the first edition of the 2015 CFP rankings. In 2017, we have a chance to see two teams who have an outside shot at reaching the playoff. Both Boise State and South Florida have the opportunity to make a run at sneaking into the playoff but history and lack of respect for the “Group of Five” is not on their side.