College Football: Group of Five Week 5 power rankings

Only a half-dozen Group of Five teams are still undefeated at this point. Here is the pecking order in the New Year’s Six race ahead of Week 5.

Entering last weekend, nine Group of Five schools were still undefeated. Only six escaped Week 4 with their zeroes in the loss column still intact.

A perfect regular season is not a prerequisite for being considered for a New Year’s Six berth. For Group of Five teams, the only requirement for entering the discussion is a conference championship. Even with losses, plenty of teams are still alive in their respective league battles.

Records, it must be noted, do matter when it comes time for the College Football Playoff selection committee to sit down and deliberate in December. They are neither the sole determinant nor the primary measuring stick for teams. But they do matter in the end.

Two of the past three Group of Five teams to take part in New Year’s Six bowls since 2014, though, are probably out of the race at this point. Last year’s top mid-major program, Western Michigan, has already lost two games. So too has Boise State, which stood as the exemplar of mid-major success over the past decade.

If those teams have tumbled out of the race, though, there are still plenty of challengers still hunting for a trip to one of the premier bowl destinations. Continue reading to see how we rate the top Group of Five schools ahead of Week 5 action in the latest edition of the Group of Five Power Rankings.