Group of Five New Year’s Six Watch, Week 12: Memphis stands tall

The Broncos are in a bit of a tight spot. Their loss to BYU did them no favors, and their close defeats did them no favors either. The end to their season lost some shine after San Diego State lost to Nevada last weekend. There are no guarantees the Broncos win out either. They’ve had their fair share of close calls this season.

The San Jose State gave them all they could handle, and they outlasted Wyoming on the blue turf this past weekend. Two of their last three games are on the road as well. The Utah State trip isn’t going to be an easy one and Colorado State isn’t very good, but they’ll be up for Boise.

The Broncos have a question similar to that of the No. 1 team on this list: will their head coach be there for the end of the season? With three openings already who knows which other dominoes might fall. Head coach Bryan Harsin will come up in a lot of conversations.

The Cincinnati Bearcats don’t wow people with their style of play. There isn’t anything overwhelming or dynamic about their offense. They’re like a manual meat grinder. You put the chunks of meat in the grinder and lean on it a bit and you get the ground meat of your pleasure. Not the most aesthetically pleasing event to watch, but it gets the job done. That’s Bearcat football — not always the most entertaining, but they get the job done.

The Bearcats have South Florida and Temple before they play Memphis to end the season. The two games before the Memphis game are a bit tricky. South Florida has won three of five and is playing much better. Temple has been somewhat of a giant killer this season with wins over Maryland and Memphis.

Not only that, they play the Owls the week before they play the Tigers. Most important, can Cincinnati keep this winning streak up?

The Memphis Tigers are the only team other than Cincinnati who are in control of their fate. If Memphis wins out, they are going to the New Year’s Six. No team in the Group of Five would have more pelts than the Tigers.

They have their Power Five win against Mississippi. Their big wins would include SMU, Navy and Cincinnati twice. There’s no more impressive resume in the entire Group of Five than Memphis’ resume.

App State might have two Power Five wins, but they don’t have the strength of schedule in their conference. If Memphis runs the table they would have wins over three ranked teams; App State has no wins against ranked opponents.

The biggest hurdle for the Tigers is their last three games; two of the last three games are on the road. Oh, and is head coach Mike Norvell going to even be at Memphis? His name is going to come up in a lot of different places including Fayetteville and Tallahassee.