After a slew of upsets, only two undefeated teams remain in the Group of Five. Keep reading for the Group of Five Power Rankings as we look toward Week 8.
Entering the weekend, there were four undefeated Group of Five teams in the AP Top 25. Exiting Week 7, there are only two unbeaten schools left. The weekend of carnage that swept through the Top 10 also hit the bottom of the rankings.
Navy lost on the road to Memphis in an AAC West showdown. The Tigers win gives them the tiebreaker in the division against the Midshipmen. Later on Saturday, San Diego State fell at home to Boise State in a game that was never in doubt for the Broncos.
All four teams are among the top contenders in the race for the solitary spot in a New Year’s Six bowl available to the Group of Five conference champion that is rated best by the College Football Playoff selection committee and its opaque standard of measurement.
If you can say one thing about the BCS system, it wasn’t the calculation that necessarily made it a bad way of creating a postseason structure. The access, both in the case of matching only 1-vs.-2 instead of the four-team system in place now and in terms of setting an arbitrary number for mid-majors.
Here’s where you’re probably shouting, “But there were no guarantees!”
A BCS Buster slot was never a given, that is indeed true. But at least the work by teams like Utah and Boise State helped carve the path for expanded accessibility into the major bowl games.
The Utes and TCU parlayed their successes as mid-majors into Power Five membership in the Pac-12 and Big 12 respectively. Others like UCF and Houston did briefly as well, until the Big East became the American Athletic Conference and lost its membership among the elite leagues after the end of the BCS.
But the teams and conferences under that arbitrary line of Power Five membership know that at least one of them will be granted access. Reaching the four-team playoff will be as hard as it was to reach the two-team setup in the BCS era, but at least we’ve already had discussions about the possibility in recent seasons with Houston’s early run last year.
There is also historical precedent. Had there been four teams under the BCS system, TCU would have made it into the semifinals as an undefeated Mountain West champion in 2009. It would have either been the Horned Frogs or WAC champion Boise State getting the nod from a committee, too, given that Florida lost to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game.
Can any Group of Five teams still make the College Football Playoff?
Only two teams have any sort of shot at that ultimate prize, though, as it will take an undefeated season to come within sniffing distance of the College Football Playoff as a Group of Five team.
At least these days we’re no longer talking about whether a team might get in to a big bowl game…
… instead, we get to dive into which team will make a New Year’s Six game.
That fine distinction is critical and valuable, and any expansion of the College Football Playoff field down the road will likely include further access to a shot at the grand prize. For now, though, keep reading to see the top 10 teams in the New Year’s Six race as we dive into this week’s Group of Five Power Rankings ahead of Week 7 action.