Blitz Podcast: College football 2020 Group of Five preview

This week’s podcast breaks down each of the five college football Group of Five conferences and debates who will make the New Year’s Six this season.

Since the College Football Playoff replaced the BCS for the 2014 season, access to major bowl games has increased for Group of Five schools. Where before teams from one of these conferences were forced to meet specific guidelines for qualification into a BCS bowl, now there is one guaranteed spot set aside for the top Group of Five champion as determined by the selection committee.

Will a Group of Five team actually get a chance to play in a New Year’s Six bowl game this year, though? As the scheduled kickoff of the 2020 college football season approaches, uncertainty hovers over the sport at all levels. Even without knowing exactly what schedules will look like this fall, we can still look ahead in hopes that teams will take to the gridiron and football will transpire as normal. Every FBS league is in a precarious situation, but none will be impacted more than the Group of Five conferences.

Last week the Saturday Blitz Podcast dove in to examine FCS leagues and whether anyone might take down the North Dakota State juggernaut. Now it is time to dig into the Group of Five races and pick apart each league and each division.

That is exactly what we do this week. The first segment offers a more general look at what the season might actually look like and how potential cancellations could impact the Group of Five race. After the first break, we turn our attention to the battles for MAC, Conference USA, and Sun Belt supremacy. In the final segment, we pivot to look at the two leagues that have dominated the discourse over the past decade — the Mountain West and American Athletic Conference.

Listen through the above player or download the podcast to your favorite app to hear our thoughts on which teams will emerge triumphant and who will earn their way into one of the premier postseason opportunities.

The Saturday Blitz Podcast is part of the FanSided Radio Network at Spreaker. The show goes live every Wednesday morning. You can reach John Mitchell at @jlmitchell93 and Zach Bigalke at @zbigalke on Twitter.