Can a Group of Five team make the College Football Playoff again?

1. Houston Cougars (1-0)

One of those teams in the American that make the conference so tough is the Houston Cougars. Much like their conference rival  UCF (though they don’t play the Knights in the regular season), they have two Power Five opponents on their schedule without the degree of difficulty of BYU.

This past weekend, the Cougars defeated arguably the standard of Conference USA in the UTSA Roadrunners in one of the most thrilling games of week one. The Cougars did struggle containing UTSA quarterback Frank Harris, but many teams are going to struggle to stop him. Houston’s defensive line known as, “Sack Avenue” did get to Harris three times.

The run defense limited the Roadrunners to under four yards per rush attempt. Houston travels to Lubbock to take on first-year head coach Joey Maguire and the Texas Tech Red Raiders in what should be an interesting game. Expect head coach Dana Holgersen to open the playbook more against the Raiders.

Houston then has a winnable Big 12 game against Kansas. When the Cougars get into conference play, there might not be a team that can block them. The one negative to their conference schedule is they do not play either Cincinnati or UCF in the regular season.