It is only September.
Time and opportunity both exist for a few teams in the Group of Five conferences to make a run at a New Year’s Six bowl. However, if you have already taken the time to peruse results and standings after week three, you’ll notice something unsettling if you’re partial to the little guy in college football: The “G-5 summit,” as it were — if held today — would not have many delegations at the table.
While Ole Miss shot to the top tier of the polls and USC got knocked off by Stanford and Cal played that thriller with Texas on Saturday night, various results came trickling in which did not bolster the Group of Five as a whole:
* Utah State lost at Washington, part of a Black Saturday in which the Mountain West — for the second straight Saturday — managed to do something which is very hard to pull off: It went 0-for-the-FBS in non-conference play:
Utah crushes Fresno State so that’s 21 straight losses to FBS non-conference opponents for the MWC. Last win was Boise State over UW.
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) September 20, 2015
* Indiana beat Western Kentucky, leaving Conference USA with no unbeaten teams after three weeks.
* Memphis and Bowling Green did the Group of Five proud, but the Memphis victory saddles a good BGSU club with two losses. Northern Illinois fought Ohio State well, but the loss leaves just Ohio and Toledo with unbeaten marks through three weeks. NIU and (peripherally) BGSU are still alive in the MAC’s New Year’s Six bowl chase, but they have very little margin for error (and in BGSU’s case, zero).
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What does this all mean, jellybean?
Let’s consider the situations in the various Group of Five conferences. They are not beyond the point of hope, but they are not encouraging.
Every Sun Belt team, like every C-USA team, has lost.
In the MAC, eight teams have lost at least twice.
In the Mountain West, nine teams have lost at least twice, due to the non-conference bloodbath the league has endured the past two weeks. Every team has lost, and the only three teams with one loss are Boise State, Air Force (in the same division) and Hawaii (in the opposite division). The Boise-Air Force loser might not be completely out of the running, but it would definitely have a narrow path to the top of the Group of Five in early December.
The one league we haven’t yet talked about is The American. Why? It’s the one G-5 league which — on a larger scale — has survived the first three weeks. If you were to make a bet on the Group of Five representative in the New Year’s Six bowls, Boise State and a MAC champion from the trio of Ohio, Toledo, and NIU would be pretty reasonable bets.
Other than those options, however, The American is the only conference to turn to.
Navy, Memphis, Houston, and Temple are all unbeaten. Temple has a win over Cincinnati (same division) in its pocket, and unless Navy, Memphis and Houston all beat each other once, the team which can sweep that three-way head-to-head could go against Temple for the AAC title and stand a very good chance of giving the league the NY6 team more than two months from now.
The American. Boise State. The MAC champion from a field of three.
That’s your Group of Five situation, just three weeks into the season.
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Here is the postscript: What if the AAC contenders, especially the three (Navy, Houston and Memphis) in the same division, all beat each other up and lose another game somewhere along the way? What if NIU beats Toledo and Ohio loses twice before the MAC Championship Game?
Be emotionally and intellectually prepared to see 38,771 (#UNOFFICIALSTATS) Group of Five teams with two losses in a very tight jumble in the race for an NY6 bid.
The American has the inside track as a conference, but if the first three weeks of the season were chaotic, we still have to wait for the next three-week segment… and the one after that… and the one after that… and then the season finales, including the conference championship games.
America is a land of options, but the Group of Five hasn’t expanded its options through three weeks in the 2015 season. If more options come into play, it will only be because unbeaten teams lose and invite one- or two-loss teams back into the hunt.
These are generally uneasy times for Group of Five conference executives… except for Mike Aresco. However, even he knows that his currently lofty perch might not be safe for long.
