Group of Five New Year’s Six Watch, Week 9: Cincinnati leaves no doubt
By Dante Pryor
3. No. 20 Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (5-0, 3-0 Sun Belt)
In addition to the Liberty Flames, Coastal Carolina is the best story in the entire Group of Five. The Chanticleers are also a young FBS team beginning play in 2017. This season has been a meteoric rise. First, it was their annual beat down of Kansas. Next, it was their hard-fought victory against Louisiana.
The “Chants” have shown their mettle through adversity last week when they learned at the last minute that starting quarterback Grayson McCall would not play. Back up quarterback Fred Payton led the Chanticleers to a victory against the always tough Georgia Southern Eagles. There is still work to be done for Coastal with Appalachian State and Liberty still on the schedule.
2. No. 11 BYU Cougars (6-0)
Brigham Young is living up to their mascot mauling opponent this season.
Offensively, the Cougars have scored over 40 points in every game save one. Defensively, Houston scored the most points against the Cougars at 26. This is a team playing angrily.
For BYU, this could end up being a season of what-ifs.
What if the pandemic did not take their Power Five opponents off of the schedule? Their original schedule included Arizona State, Utah, Michigan State, Minnesota, Missouri and Stanford. Running the table against that schedule could have caused quite the argument in the committee room.