Why is Western Michigan not in the College Football Playoff? Because this is only Year 1.

There are two undefeated teams in college football. One (Alabama) is playing for the national championship, while the other (Western Michigan) never had a real chance to do so this season.

The Broncos could have won 20 games this regular season and it wouldn’t really matter. The Playoff Committee has sent a message about who they’ll let in the Playoff with benefit of the doubt as an established brand name, and who they won’t. Western Michigan is not in the sport’s upper echelon, commonly referred to as the Power 5. The P5 consists of the schools in the Pac-12, Big 12, ACC, SEC, and Big Ten. Notre Dame’s in the mix there, too, despite a 4-8 record in 2016.

WMU plays in the MAC, one of the Group of 5 schools. That means that according to the committee they’re not worthy until they prove their merits more than once. The G5 includes the MAC, WAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt, and American. To his credit, coach PJ Fleck knew his team would miss the Playoff party, and was concerned about asserting G5 supremacy after winning the Mac title game.

You could say that the game is rigged against the Group of 5, but that’s not as true as you might think. Where there’s a will there’s a way. It’s just a hard way.

WMU is 13-0 this season, and finished higher in the committee’s final rankings than any Group of 5 school to date at No. 15. No G5 team has ever been ranked higher that No. 13 in any committee ranking (Memphis, in Week 8 of 2014). The committee has shown that by season’s end, a clean win-loss record doesn’t really matter if it doesn’t come in conjunction with strength of schedule. That’s part of a larger reliance on strength of schedule, which comes into play at the top of the rankings, as well.

In 2014, Marshall started the season 11-0, but couldn’t crack the committee’s top 25 until Week 12, the week they ended up losing anyway. They were ranked behind a two-loss Boise State (one of the Broncos’ Ls came against Ole Miss) in that week’s rankings, as well. The Broncos would hold serve and finish 11-2, and as Mountain West champs, earned the G5’s automatic New Year’s Six bowl bid in the Fiesta Bowl as the highest-ranked team. Boise would get the victory, 38-30, over Arizona.

Maybe Marshall could have supplanted the Broncos had they been undefeated Conference USA champions, but their league title wasn’t enough because of the loss to Western Kentucky and nothing close to a quality opponent on their schedule.

Houston finished No. 18 in the final Playoff rankings of 2015, and snagged the G5’s NY6 berth as American Conference champs with quality wins against Navy and Temple. They weren’t undefeated, but showed off their talent beating Florida State in the Peach Bowl.

In 2015, Oklahoma started as preseason No. 19 in the country and were No. 15 in the first Playoff rankings released in Week 10. They ended up in the Playoff after winning their way in with a Big 12 title. Clemson was preseason No. 12 and after an 8-0 start debuted at No. 1 in the committee’s first rankings. If you’re a P5 team, you can work your way into the Playoff in less than a year, but if you’re a G5 team you need one year to build on the next. Establish credibility in Year 1, then fulfill it in Year 2.

Houston had that chance, but bungled it. The Cougars beat Oklahoma and Louisville in the same season and if they had won their conference title as an undefeated (which would have also included a win over Navy) there would have been a serious debate about the Cougars. It would be because of a multi-year process. This year could have built on last year, at least in the court of public opinion to make their Playoff case. But other regular season losses by Houston meant we never got the chance to know.

At 13-0, of course the Broncos would love to be in the College Football Playoff, but next season they’ll get their shot. Whether they beat the Badgers or not, the ball is rolling toward 2017 with much more work to do.

In Week 1, WMU goes to Michigan State. In Week 2, the Broncos go on the road at USC. If they can win those games, and then 11 more (including a conference championship game, the Playoff Committee would be hard-pressed to leave Western Michigan out. Even if they trip up in conference play there would be a discussion, but it’d be best not to leave the room for doubt. That is yet another example of a reduced margin of error for the G5. But with the loss of star receiver Corey Davis, an uphill battle won’t exactly be getting any easier.

Is there anything the other Group of 5 schools can do about their plight?

Besides “play better teams,” not really. There are rumblings that some G5 schools want to start their own shadow Playoff, according to ESPN, citing Northern Illinois AD Sean Frazier as a vocal proponent, among others.

Frazier said he believes a Group of 5 playoff could be financially rewarding to those schools. NBC, CBS and ESPN have interest in televising a Group of 5 playoff, an industry source said.

“As long as the financial agreement that currently exists with the CFB Playoff remains and we had the opportunity to package a Group of 5 championship, why wouldn’t we want to do it?” a Group of 5 official said. “It would spread the exposure to all five conferences, rather than just the one conference champion that plays in a New Year’s 6 bowl.”

But there are myriad issues that come to play with that including perpetuating the gulf between the P5 and the G5, what bowls would actually be involved in such a Playoff, and of course getting all the G5 conferences on board. The American has been pushing a Power 6 mindset with their own fancy helmet decals to send a message that they’re just as good as the big boys.

For now, the Group of 5 has to run while the Power 5 simply has to walk. Do twice as much, and maybe you’ll get the shot the second time around.