The highest-ranked Group of 5 champ in the Playoff committee’s rankings gets a guaranteed spot in a New Year’s Six bowl game.
The MAC’s extremely faint New Year’s 6 bowl hopes are toast
Toledo goes down, and the MAC won’t be making a return to the big time.
Photo by Andrew Weber/Getty Images
As a Group of 5 team, you can lose once and still get the berth, with a little luck and some nice wins. Houston went 12-1 and then to the Peach Bowl after the 2015 season. Of course, nobody had qualms with the MAC’s undefeated Western Michigan getting the Cotton Bowl last season.
When you lose twice, you really lose control of your own destiny. Boise State made the Fiesta Bowl after the 2014 season as a two-loss team; the Broncos might’ve gotten a little help when the committee-disfavored Marshall took a loss, though Boise was already ranked ahead of the Herd.
Toledo now has two losses after getting waxed by Frank Solich’s Ohio, 38-10. Now both have two losses and lead their respective divisions. That puts already very tenuous MAC New Year’s Six hopes largely to bed.
Consider what the committee was already saying about the MAC.
In the most recent CFP top 25, UCF is ranked No. 18. The Knights are undefeated, and have a comparable resume to Wisconsin through Week 11 (although the Badgers will get a chance to boost their slate against Michigan, Iowa, and a possible conference title game).
UCF vs. Wisconsin
Metric | UCF | Wisconsin |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 8-0 | 9-0 |
| Best win | 40-13 vs. #22 Memphis | 33-24 vs. #25 Northwestern |
| Second best win | 31-24 at 6-3 SMU | 31-14 vs. 6-3 FAU |
| Third best win | 31-21 at 5-3 Navy | uhhh idk |
| vs. winning teams | 4-0 | 2-0 |
| Avg. score vs. FBS | 45-18 | 36-12 |
| vs. Big Ten | 1-0 | 6-0 |
| CPI | #2 | #8 |
| Strength of Record | #10 | #8 |
| S&P+ | #5 | #6 |
| Resume S&P+ | #7 | #8 |
| Offensive S&P+ | #2 | #30 |
| Defensive S&P+ | #62 | #6 |
| Massey Composite | #9 | #5 |
| Playoff ranking | #18 | #8 |
But right behind UCF is No. 22 Memphis. The Tigers have one loss, to those UCF Knights, 40-13, and yet Memphis is essentially nipping at the Knights’ heels.
There are a couple message here being sent by the committee:
- The Playoff won’t be cracked by any mid-major this year.
- The top non-power conference this year is well-established.
Through Week 11, the American exists in the middle class between Group of 5 and Power 5.
The MAC is within the G5 pack — somewhere. Before losing to the Bobcats, Toledo’s only loss was to still-undefeated Miami. The Rockets were competitive until toward the end.
The committee doesn’t tell us which teams were close to the top 25, but it stands to reason that Toledo was around it, given they were 8-1 and in the “others receiving votes” category in both human polls released Sunday. They were also 19th in the S&P+ rankings before the Ohio loss.
The committee’s not supposed to grade conferences in bulk, though, and Memphis did have the better list of wins than Toledo, if you count UCLA as a competitive Power 5 team before Josh Rosen’s injury.
For the MAC to get a team into the New Year’s Six now, the league needs a truckload of help.
The AAC and Mountain West have to absolutely eat themselves alive down the stretch. That’s probably not happening.
Ohio and Toledo might play again in the MAC’s conference title game, but the stakes almost certainly won’t extend beyond the Midwest.
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