Group of 5 commissioner sends strong message to Power 5

On Tuesday, a Group of 5 conference commissioner stepped up and sent a strong message to the ‘Power 5’ conferences.

American Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco made a bold and strong statement sent right to the people in charge of the Power 5 conference branding. Aresco believes it’s a denigrating term.

“How often do we hear NCAA members extolling the value of inclusion and the importance of student-athlete well-being? Yet the current system, and the media narrative, exclude, devalue, and diminish the very real achievements of over half of FBS football,” Aresco said. “The current system and nomenclature, in ways obvious and also subtle, reduces half of FBS college football to a perceived irrelevancy, to a second-class citizenship that is not healthy and that it does not deserve.”

“This has to stop,” Aresco bluntly said.

An Open Letter on Power 5 – Group of 5 Branding

🔗 https://t.co/1RAzMyzXcs pic.twitter.com/HBflw1pL7T

— The American (@American_Conf) May 9, 2023

It’s an interesting argument. It holds weight because the Power 5 often excludes or doesn’t seem to respect the Group of 5. You can look at the arguments before and after the Peach Bowl when then-unbeaten UCF toppled Auburn.

Is it a message that will be well-received? So far, it doesn’t seem like it. But it was heard, for sure, on Tuesday. Whether anything will come from it is yet to be seen. But the battle will wage on between the Group of 5 and the Power 5, especially as CFB Playoff expansion looms.

[American Conference]