College Football

A second College Football Playoff just for mid-majors? What if it looked like this?

The non-power Group of 5 conferences might be acknowledging that they have very little shot of winning the National Championship. What if they had a tournament they could definitely get into?

by Michael Bird

Updated Feb 13, 2017, 6:33 PM UTC

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

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Wisconsin vs. Western Michigan, Cotton Bowl 2016-17: Badgers hold off Broncos

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Western Michigan’s reward for a 13-0 season in which the Broncos beat two Big Ten teams is ... a trip to play the fourth-best team in the Big Ten in cavernous JerryWorld. If the Broncos win, "did the Badgers really care?" questions will come up, just as they did last year when Houston throttled Florida State. If the Broncos lose, the response will be: "see, they weren’t that good."

What if, instead of getting the scraps from the New Year’s Six table, Western Michigan got a chance to play for a trophy? What if it got to host a semifinal at Waldo Stadium? What if they were also part of the never-ending "Who’s in?" debate?

In short, what if there were a second Playoff for the Group of 5, the five non-power FBS conferences? ESPN reported in December that some mid-major ADs are interested, but others oppose the idea of a "junior varsity" system, and in February, NIU was still making noise about it.

Let’s make our own plan, since there isn’t a real one yet.

This wouldn’t necessarily mean the Group of 5 giving up on the Playoff. If a Group of 5 team were picked to play in the actual Playoff, it could be replaced by another Group of 5 team.

Expanding the existing Playoff would also be a separate argument, as that raises the question of diluting the national championship.

The structure could be the same as the existing Playoff: four teams picked by a committee, using the same criteria.

The difference would be that the games would be on-campus, on the theory that Group of 5 teams (for a variety of reasons) would be even less likely than Power 5 teams to fill far-away venues. (And if the success of on-campus playoff games causes the existing Playoff to go in that direction, even better!)

So how would the committee fill the field for 2016?

While the committee claims to follow a host of criteria, it’s not an accident that its Playoff spots this year could've just been based on record. Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, and Washington all have zero or one losses.

Accordingly, Western Michigan gets the top seed. The Broncos might only be the eighth-best Group of 5 team, according to S&P+, but the committee loves an unblemished record. No one comes close in the loss column. The committee also likes ESPN’s strength of record measure, which has Western Michigan far ahead of any other Group of 5 team. The committee had the Broncos as the only Group of 5 team in the top 20 anyway, so they get the top seed.

The second seed goes to Temple. The Owls won the AAC, the best of the Group of 5 conferences. After a strange loss to Army in its opener, Temple ran the table, save for a pair of 34-27 losses at Penn State and Memphis. The Owls allowed only 33 points in their last five games, the last of which was a 24-point win at Navy in the conference title game. Temple gets a home semifinal.

The remaining two spots would've gotten tricky. There are a host of contenders. Using a hodge-podge of factors that the committee would favor and S&P+, for those of us who like math (or like people whom we trust can do math), here are candidates, with only their pre-bowl records

	Record	Conference champ?	Opponent win % (Rank)	S&P+ rank	Best wins
Navy	9-4	No	.529 (62)	60	Houston Notre Dame
Houston	9-3	No	.473 (99)	27	Oklahoma Louisville
South Florida	10-2	No	.520 (67)	39	Syracuse Navy Memphis
San Diego State	10-3	Yes	.428 (120)	46	Cal Wyoming
Boise State	10-2	No	.431 (117)	15	Wazzu Oregon State BYU CSU
Western Kentucky	10-3	Yes	.456 (107)	14	LA Tech MTSU
Appalachian State	9-3	Yes	.433 (113)	32	ODU Idaho

So what factors would a committee favor for the other two? If it wanted:

... only conference champions, it would take San Diego State and either Western Kentucky or Appalachian State (probably the former, because the Hilltoppers won a conference championship game, avoiding the 2014 Big 12 problem).
... the teams with the best wins, it would take Houston and Boise State. Houston might have finished only 5-3 in the AAC, but the Cougars beat No. 7 Oklahoma and No. 13 Louisville decisively. Houston’s top gear is faster than anyone else’s. Boise State boasts a pair of wins over Pac-12 teams.
... the teams with the fewest losses, it would take South Florida and Boise State, the only two-loss teams remaining.
... to defer to advanced ratings on the sly, it might take Western Kentucky and Boise State (S&P+), WKU and Houston (Sagarin), or Boise State and South Florida (SRS).
... a second AAC team, it might favor South Florida, which beat Navy, which beat Houston.

In the end, my guess is that the committee would’ve taken Boise State and South Florida. (SDSU’s Las Vegas Bowl blowout of Houston wouldn’t have factored into this choice, but it does show the Aztecs would’ve been a fair choice, as well.)

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that humans tend to rank based on number of losses, with stated factors like strength of schedule, conference titles, and head-to-head acting as tie-breakers.

Boise State has a good collection of wins, and the advanced stats approve. The argument against Boise State would be that San Diego State won the Mountain West, but the Aztecs came out of a terrible division (every other team in the MWC West finished at or above .500) and had an 18-point loss to South Alabama and a 32-point loss to Colorado State.

South Florida is rewarded for finishing 10-2 in the AAC, the best of the Group of 5 conferences. The head-to-head chain puts the Bulls ahead of Navy and Houston. The Cougars might have two more impressive non-conference wins, but the Cougars finished in third place in their division; South Florida tied with Temple for first. Plus, South Florida has three wins better than anything on the resumes of Western Kentucky or Appalachian State.

So your Group of 5 Playoff might be:

No. 4 South Florida at No. 1 Western Michigan in Kalamazoo
No. 3 Boise State at No. 2 Temple in Philadelphia

Doesn’t that sound like more fun than playing the “who is motivated today” question as two teams play in a half-empty stadium? And wouldn’t we rather see these Group of 5 teams flex their muscles against one another instead of 10-3 Wisconsin and a trio of 6-6 Power 5 teams (Baylor, South Carolina, and Wake Forest)? Don’t we want to see one of these coaches hoist a trophy that means something?

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