Part of the chaos in the new 12-team College Football Playoff format is the fact that the Group of Five teams all get to compete for one guaranteed bid. Most seasons, teams from the Group of Five were an afterthought, but in this new format, the league gets everyone's attention. While last season Boise State ran away with the bid to the Playoff, this season, we're getting the chaos that makes the guaranteed bid perfect.
When the College Football Playoff committee unveiled its 12-team bracket on Tuesday Night, the Memphis Tigers held the Group of Five bid to the Playoff. On Friday Night, Jon Sumrall and the Tulane Green Wave went on the road and stunned Memphis, blowing the race for the College Football Playoff wide open.
TULANE GOES ON THE ROAD AND TAKES DOWN MEMPHIS 38-32 🌊
— CFB Kings (@CFBKings) November 8, 2025
The Green Wave keeps their College Football Playoff hopes alive, while the Tigers have been virtually eliminated. pic.twitter.com/AarBw2AkFX
Tulane's upset win creates wide open race to end the season
After Tulane stunned Memphis on Friday Night, it dropped Memphis' chances of making the Playoff down to just 3% which makes this a wide-open race. Over the final stretch of the season, the Group of Five race may be more entertaining than the race for some of the At-Large bids.
Tulane improved its chances to 12% after knocking off Memphis, meaning the Green Wave still has a ton of work to do. The rest of the schedule as a whole is fairly easy, as Tulane faces below .500 teams in FAU and Charlotte, while Temple could give them a serious test.
James Madison is the team that no one is talking about in the Group of Five race, as everyone assumed the AAC would earn the bid before all of this chaos. At 7-1, James Madison is unbeaten in Sun Belt play, with their lone loss coming against a Playoff contender in Louisville. If JMU can win the Sun Belt while winning their Non-Conference game against Washington State, this team should have the best resume.
North Texas has jumped out to an 8-1 start, and its schedule the rest of the way is easy enough that they should finish the year without an extra loss. The Mean Green have below .500 teams in UAB and Rice, still lingering, while Temple has shown that they can't be counted out. North Texas has one of the best offenses in the Country, and if they get a rematch against USF, it'd be entertaining to see if they bridged the gap.
The team that benefited the most from Memphis suffering a second loss is the USF Bulls, who suffered a loss to Memphis, which would've been a tiebreaker against them. Alex Golesh's team has looked like the best team in the American all season long, and if they win their game against Navy next weekend, they'll be in the driver's seat in the AAC.
Last season's race for the Group of 5 bid was boring, as everyone knew Ashton Jeanty and Boise State were going to keep rolling. This season is showing why the bid makes perfect sense, as we're going to get a wildly entertaining run to finish the season.