.

The G5 has been a focus of many recent threads about teams that might switch conferences at some point, but the overall future of the G5 hasn't been discussed as much on this board.

It would be of interest, in this thread, to gauge readers' opinions about the future of the G5, in areas such as the potential for increased incomes, viewership, and national rankings.

Topics of interest would include:

1) Will the gap between the top G5 conferences and the P5 conferences with respect to income and viewership increase, decrease, or remain the same over the next 20 years?

2) Will all five G5 conferences (AAC, C-USA, MAC, MWC, and Sun Belt) continue to exist 20 years from now?

3) If not, why not?

- - Would any of them simply implode, increasing the number of independents?

- - Would any of them merge?

4) If all five conferences continue to exist in 20 years, will they still be described "G5" conferences?

5) At some point in the next 50 years, is it possible that any of the current G5 conferences will generate such high viewership that a major network will push elevation to "Power" and NCAA "Autonomous" status?

- - If so, is the upper limit on the # of conferences that could do so 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5?

- - Which conference(s) might be able to make the jump?

6) Will there still be a total of 10 FBS conferences in 20 years?

- - If not, why not?

- - If not, how many FBS conferences will there be in 2040?

(09-18-2020 01:00 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  The G5 has been a focus of many recent threads about teams that might switch conferences at some point, but the overall future of the G5 hasn't been discussed as much on this board.

I grew up watching college football in the 1970s, at that time what are today G5 programs were essentially invisible. Nobody outside their campuses knew anything about them.

In that regard, I am very happy that USF established football in 1997, on the cusp of the BCS, as the BCS/CFP era has been far and away the best time to ever be a non-Power program. My team gets more game exposure on TV today than Oklahoma and Alabama did in the 1980s.

Everything about now is better for the G5, so I basically expect that trend to continue.

(09-18-2020 01:11 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-18-2020 01:00 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  The G5 has been a focus of many recent threads about teams that might switch conferences at some point, but the overall future of the G5 hasn't been discussed as much on this board.

I grew up watching college football in the 1970s, at that time what are today G5 programs were essentially invisible. Nobody outside their campuses knew anything about them.

In that regard, I am very happy that USF established football in 1997, on the cusp of the BCS, as the BCS/CFP era has been far and away the best time to ever be a non-Power program. My team gets more game exposure on TV today than Oklahoma and Alabama did in the 1980s.

Everything about now is better for the G5, so I basically expect that trend to continue.

I grew up watching college football in the 1950s. Then, even those we now know as P5 programs, weren't very visible. At the time, you basically had your choice of three channels to watch sports unless you lived in NYC (and there pro sports dominated). That improved slowly until the 70s, but exploded with the invention of Cable television.

It is the expansion of channels and other outlets that have aided the visibility of G5 programs, not anything those programs themselves did. And I have a hard time picturing that trend will continue much in the future. Even if there are more channels competing for inventory, and therefore more games being broadcast, I doubt the number of actual eyeballs will increase much if at all.

But the G5 will continue to exist, if for no other reason than that there are only a handful of program with any potential to be called up to the P5. Even without those schools, there are still enough to fill five conferences comfortably.

The education market is changing in a way that is not favorable for 3rd tier academic institutions.

G5 schools like Rice, Buffalo, and Georgia State will be fine. If anything, they will gain on the P5s as they grow.

But a lot of academically weaker G5 schools will shrink to the point where they can no longer support a football program.

The example that comes to mind is Southern Illinois-Carbondale. A mere 10 years ago, it had over 20,000 students and was coming off 2 Sweet 16 runs in a 5-year period. Today, it has 11,366 students and is rapidly becoming irrelevant.

Illinois' lower tier schools had their reckoning earlier than the rest of the country because of a budget crisis. But rest assured, it is coming, and it will separate the well-run schools from the poorly run schools. Schools like Bowling Green, Wyoming, and University of South Alabama are already down 10% or more from 2015-2019.

We need someone to write a 20-page dissertation and post the PDF here.

The G5 are all here to stay. A lucky few might ascend into the P ranks; others may rise from lower ranks or start programs from scratch, and maybe there’s some shuffling between the 5.

Personally, I think C-USA and the SBC would profit from working together and becoming more regional.

(09-18-2020 06:26 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The education market is changing in a way that is not favorable for 3rd tier academic institutions.

G5 schools like Rice, Buffalo, and Georgia State will be fine. If anything, they will gain on the P5s as they grow.

But a lot of academically weaker G5 schools will shrink to the point where they can no longer support a football program.

The example that comes to mind is Southern Illinois-Carbondale. A mere 10 years ago, it had over 20,000 students and was coming off 2 Sweet 16 runs in a 5-year period. Today, it has 11,366 students and is rapidly becoming irrelevant.

Illinois' lower tier schools had their reckoning earlier than the rest of the country because of a budget crisis. But rest assured, it is coming, and it will separate the well-run schools from the poorly run schools. Schools like Bowling Green, Wyoming, and University of South Alabama are already down 10% or more from 2015-2019.

Eh, I'm not reading too much into South Alabama's enrollment numbers going down. Between 2000 and 2016 USA grew by 40.7%. From 2016-2020 we had a decrease of 12.2%. We had some changes with enrollment requirements that has helped contribute to the downturn. South Alabama has an endowment of ~570 million dollars and just built a 75 million dollar football stadium for our 11 year old football team (to go along with our football field house that's already been renovated and covered practice facility), so I think we'll be just fine. Not bad for a university that has been around for only 57 years if you ask me.

Things have developed a long way. Prior to the BCS it was an 8 major conference system; PAC, WAC, SWC, B8, B1G, SEC, ACC, BE plus major independents.

Then the Big West and MAC were out there lingering in the shadows. But they played each other in a final bowl game so they had their due.

Group consciousness for the lower tier conferences wasn't even a factor during the first BCS four year contract. CUSA and MWC formed as a way to position themselves as a power league to get on the bandwagon. Both conferences included schools that played each other for a long time who considered themselves peers. At first it seemed to be working as the MWC had regional ABC games in its time zone and CUSA jumped out with basketball.

It was around the time of the second contract when college sports on TV was hitting high gear and media was explaining away success of certain teams by being able to get into a BCS conference. Then realignment hit and the best programs jumped from CUSA. But it also became clear from successes of Marshall and then a few years later with Utah that collectively the deserved a decent shot a BCS access.

It wasn't until 2004 where it non-BCS became fully understood to be a level. The BCS busters intensified the discussion. Boise State and TCU almost cracked the formula for a NC.

The CFP was a big step forward in that consciousness with the G5 having one structure and the P5 another structure. Five conferences with a full 10 to 14 members, each with at least 5 bowl tie-ins.

Questions like will the same 5 G5 conferences be around in 20 years? The answer to that one I'd imagine is yes. The year 2000 was 20 years ago and at that time it was the WAC, MWC, MAC, CUSA. The SBC started sponsoring FB in 2001. Even in this period of relative upheaval the only conference that disappeared was the WAC as it was absorbed by an enlarged MWC. The AAC has come on board to replace it.

With the way CFP distributions work and the legally binding status of a conference what makes more sense is that when future realignment comes to rebuild with less schools. 10 teams for AAC, CUSA and SBC makes since and what that means is there probably are few remaining FCS call ups. The idea of a few dropping out of the G5 because of enrollment is possible.

Can the G5 make a serious run at greater TV money? Maybe they should pool TV rights to create a better TV package for all. It might mean less national TV appearance than what some are getting now as a sacrifice.

I don't see any of the G5 conferences becoming autonomy conferences. Realignment will pick off the cream of the crop as its done before.

(09-18-2020 06:26 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The education market is changing in a way that is not favorable for 3rd tier academic institutions.

G5 schools like Rice, Buffalo, and Georgia State will be fine. If anything, they will gain on the P5s as they grow.

But a lot of academically weaker G5 schools will shrink to the point where they can no longer support a football program.

The example that comes to mind is Southern Illinois-Carbondale. A mere 10 years ago, it had over 20,000 students and was coming off 2 Sweet 16 runs in a 5-year period. Today, it has 11,366 students and is rapidly becoming irrelevant.

Illinois' lower tier schools had their reckoning earlier than the rest of the country because of a budget crisis. But rest assured, it is coming, and it will separate the well-run schools from the poorly run schools. Schools like Bowling Green, Wyoming, and University of South Alabama are already down 10% or more from 2015-2019.

ULM has 9,200 students and plays FBS. The threshold enrollment number for FBS ball is pretty low so I kind of doubt it will lead to future attrition.

It needs to be a combination of factors to force it like lack of money, lack of competitiveness ect. Strong teams always have a big advantage in the conversation of whether to stay up.

I have used this analogy before:
FBS football is like climbing Mount Everest... above a certain altitude, you enter the "Death Zone," where Oxygen and pressure are just too low to sustain life. Your clock is running, you either summit, turn back, or die.

The "Power Conferences" have resources: bottled O2 if you will. They are not immune to being in the "Death Zone," but the additional O2 gives them the luxury of time. Even the weakest of their members has support so that they can still attempt the summit.

The "g" conferences are not on O2. The strongest--the AAC is perhaps the fittest and can last longer than others --but they all are dying; some just faster than others. For both Conferences and individual members the choices are stay in the game as long as you can and hope to summit (now almost impossible, IMO), turn back, or die.

Even consolidating conferences, without new resources, is only forestalling the inevitable.

(09-18-2020 01:11 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-18-2020 01:00 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  The G5 has been a focus of many recent threads about teams that might switch conferences at some point, but the overall future of the G5 hasn't been discussed as much on this board.

I grew up watching college football in the 1970s, at that time what are today G5 programs were essentially invisible. Nobody outside their campuses knew anything about them.

In that regard, I am very happy that USF established football in 1997, on the cusp of the BCS, as the BCS/CFP era has been far and away the best time to ever be a non-Power program. My team gets more game exposure on TV today than Oklahoma and Alabama did in the 1980s.

Everything about now is better for the G5, so I basically expect that trend to continue.

Not true for SMU, Houston, Tulane and even Memphis and Cincinnati. They were known. Now most of CUSA and Sun Belt were FCS or Division II even. Half the MAC was until late 70s. Much of the western MWC was as well.

There is no way a current G5 conference becomes a power conference unless there is a separation and the P5 take one or two conferences along. They will still only be a mezzanine. It a G5 gets strong enough, a P5 will expand like they did with Utah and TCU.

(09-18-2020 09:17 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  Things have developed a long way. Prior to the BCS it was an 8 major conference system; PAC, WAC, SWC, B8, B1G, SEC, ACC, BE plus major independents.

Then the Big West and MAC were out there lingering in the shadows. But they played each other in a final bowl game so they had their due.

Group consciousness for the lower tier conferences wasn't even a factor during the first BCS four year contract. CUSA and MWC formed as a way to position themselves as a power league to get on the bandwagon. Both conferences included schools that played each other for a long time who considered themselves peers. At first it seemed to be working as the MWC had regional ABC games in its time zone and CUSA jumped out with basketball.

It was around the time of the second contract when college sports on TV was hitting high gear and media was explaining away success of certain teams by being able to get into a BCS conference. Then realignment hit and the best programs jumped from CUSA. But it also became clear from successes of Marshall and then a few years later with Utah that collectively the deserved a decent shot a BCS access.

It wasn't until 2004 where it non-BCS became fully understood to be a level. The BCS busters intensified the discussion. Boise State and TCU almost cracked the formula for a NC.

The CFP was a big step forward in that consciousness with the G5 having one structure and the P5 another structure. Five conferences with a full 10 to 14 members, each with at least 5 bowl tie-ins.

Questions like will the same 5 G5 conferences be around in 20 years? The answer to that one I'd imagine is yes. The year 2000 was 20 years ago and at that time it was the WAC, MWC, MAC, CUSA. The SBC started sponsoring FB in 2001. Even in this period of relative upheaval the only conference that disappeared was the WAC as it was absorbed by an enlarged MWC. The AAC has come on board to replace it.

With the way CFP distributions work and the legally binding status of a conference what makes more sense is that when future realignment comes to rebuild with less schools. 10 teams for AAC, CUSA and SBC makes since and what that means is there probably are few remaining FCS call ups. The idea of a few dropping out of the G5 because of enrollment is possible.

Can the G5 make a serious run at greater TV money? Maybe they should pool TV rights to create a better TV package for all. It might mean less national TV appearance than what some are getting now as a sacrifice.

I don't see any of the G5 conferences becoming autonomy conferences. Realignment will pick off the cream of the crop as its done before.

The AAC replaced BE Football. It is actually BE FB extended in to the AAC. The WAC just withered and died after the MWC WHACKED and pillaged it a second time.

(09-18-2020 07:02 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  We need someone to write a 20-page dissertation and post the PDF here.

Why not 200 pages? After all this subject has never been discussed before.

The key for the long-term prospects of any university athletic program that is not aligned with a P5 league is to be strong in at least one of the following: football, men's basketball, academics, location.

So let's use two schools I root for: Memphis and Middle Tennessee State

Memphis is strong in men's basketball and located in a "major" (at least compared to most U.S. places) city in which a significant percentage of the residents (and particularly African-American residents) are passionate about Tiger football and hoops. The UofM is mediocre (if that) academically but it does offer a law school. The football program has suffered some disastrous seasons but it has also enjoyed a handful of Top 25 campaigns and has beaten, over the years, Alabama, Florida State, Tennessee, Ole Miss and Southern Cal, among others. Plus (and this is key), Tiger football has a fan base that actually cares.

In contrast, Middle Tennessee is nationally irrelevant in both football and men's basketball, is mediocre in academics and is located in Murfreesboro (which, I can assure you, is not a "happening place").

Thus, the future of Memphis Tiger sports — though unclear and potentially concerning — is vastly brighter than the future of MTSU sports.

I could easily see Middle Tennessee State dropping football.

(09-19-2020 08:00 AM)bill dazzle Wrote:  The key for the long-term prospects of any university athletic program that is not aligned with a P5 league is to be strong in at least one of the following: football, men's basketball, academics, location.

So let's use two schools I root for: Memphis and Middle Tennessee State

Memphis is strong in men's basketball and located in a "major" (at least compared to most U.S. places) city in which a significant percentage of the residents (and particularly African-American residents) are passionate about Tiger football and hoops. The UofM is mediocre (if that) academically but it does offer a law school. The football program has suffered some disastrous seasons but it has also enjoyed a handful of Top 25 campaigns and has beaten, over the years, Alabama, Florida State, Tennessee, Ole Miss and Southern Cal, among others. Plus (and this is key), Tiger football has a fan base that actually cares.

In contrast, Middle Tennessee is nationally irrelevant in both football and men's basketball, is mediocre in academics and is located in Murfreesboro (which, I can assure you, is not a "happening place").

Thus, the future of Memphis Tiger sports — though unclear and potentially concerning — is vastly brighter than the future of MTSU sports.

I could easily see Middle Tennessee State dropping football.

Murfreesboro is now a Nashville suburb. If not for the Memphis basketball history which strengthens the whole program, I could see it much more likely to go the other way. MTSU is close enough to Nashville while not too close to be a pure commuter school.

(09-18-2020 08:05 PM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  

(09-18-2020 06:26 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The education market is changing in a way that is not favorable for 3rd tier academic institutions.

G5 schools like Rice, Buffalo, and Georgia State will be fine. If anything, they will gain on the P5s as they grow.

But a lot of academically weaker G5 schools will shrink to the point where they can no longer support a football program.

The example that comes to mind is Southern Illinois-Carbondale. A mere 10 years ago, it had over 20,000 students and was coming off 2 Sweet 16 runs in a 5-year period. Today, it has 11,366 students and is rapidly becoming irrelevant.

Illinois' lower tier schools had their reckoning earlier than the rest of the country because of a budget crisis. But rest assured, it is coming, and it will separate the well-run schools from the poorly run schools. Schools like Bowling Green, Wyoming, and University of South Alabama are already down 10% or more from 2015-2019.

Eh, I'm not reading too much into South Alabama's enrollment numbers going down. Between 2000 and 2016 USA grew by 40.7%. From 2016-2020 we had a decrease of 12.2%. We had some changes with enrollment requirements that has helped contribute to the downturn. South Alabama has an endowment of ~570 million dollars and just built a 75 million dollar football stadium for our 11 year old football team (to go along with our football field house that's already been renovated and covered practice facility), so I think we'll be just fine. Not bad for a university that has been around for only 57 years if you ask me.

I think we are going to be fine. The numbers for International Students and in the ESL programs are way down to compared to where it used to be. The number of new students each year is about what it has been. Just have to keep the retention up.

(09-18-2020 10:03 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-18-2020 01:11 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-18-2020 01:00 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  The G5 has been a focus of many recent threads about teams that might switch conferences at some point, but the overall future of the G5 hasn't been discussed as much on this board.

I grew up watching college football in the 1970s, at that time what are today G5 programs were essentially invisible. Nobody outside their campuses knew anything about them.

In that regard, I am very happy that USF established football in 1997, on the cusp of the BCS, as the BCS/CFP era has been far and away the best time to ever be a non-Power program. My team gets more game exposure on TV today than Oklahoma and Alabama did in the 1980s.

Everything about now is better for the G5, so I basically expect that trend to continue.

Not true for SMU, Houston, Tulane and even Memphis and Cincinnati. They were known. Now most of CUSA and Sun Belt were FCS or Division II even. Half the MAC was until late 70s. Much of the western MWC was as well.

There is no way a current G5 conference becomes a power conference unless there is a separation and the P5 take one or two conferences along. They will still only be a mezzanine. It a G5 gets strong enough, a P5 will expand like they did with Utah and TCU.

Before the 1980s, Tulane and SMU were known. Houston was known for five minutes, as the team Joe Montana rallied against. Nobody ever heard of Memphis or Cincy in football.

(09-18-2020 09:17 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  Things have developed a long way. Prior to the BCS it was an 8 major conference system; PAC, WAC, SWC, B8, B1G, SEC, ACC, BE plus major independents.

Then the Big West and MAC were out there lingering in the shadows. But they played each other in a final bowl game so they had their due.

Group consciousness for the lower tier conferences wasn't even a factor during the first BCS four year contract. CUSA and MWC formed as a way to position themselves as a power league to get on the bandwagon. Both conferences included schools that played each other for a long time who considered themselves peers. At first it seemed to be working as the MWC had regional ABC games in its time zone and CUSA jumped out with basketball.

It was around the time of the second contract when college sports on TV was hitting high gear and media was explaining away success of certain teams by being able to get into a BCS conference. Then realignment hit and the best programs jumped from CUSA. But it also became clear from successes of Marshall and then a few years later with Utah that collectively the deserved a decent shot a BCS access.

It wasn't until 2004 where it non-BCS became fully understood to be a level. The BCS busters intensified the discussion. Boise State and TCU almost cracked the formula for a NC.

The CFP was a big step forward in that consciousness with the G5 having one structure and the P5 another structure. Five conferences with a full 10 to 14 members, each with at least 5 bowl tie-ins.

Questions like will the same 5 G5 conferences be around in 20 years? The answer to that one I'd imagine is yes. The year 2000 was 20 years ago and at that time it was the WAC, MWC, MAC, CUSA. The SBC started sponsoring FB in 2001. Even in this period of relative upheaval the only conference that disappeared was the WAC as it was absorbed by an enlarged MWC. The AAC has come on board to replace it.

With the way CFP distributions work and the legally binding status of a conference what makes more sense is that when future realignment comes to rebuild with less schools. 10 teams for AAC, CUSA and SBC makes since and what that means is there probably are few remaining FCS call ups. The idea of a few dropping out of the G5 because of enrollment is possible.

Can the G5 make a serious run at greater TV money? Maybe they should pool TV rights to create a better TV package for all. It might mean less national TV appearance than what some are getting now as a sacrifice.

I don't see any of the G5 conferences becoming autonomy conferences. Realignment will pick off the cream of the crop as its done before.

Interesting analysis. I actually think it was more of a 7 Conference system, never an 8 conference one: Big Ten, Big 8, SWC, Pac 10, ACC, SEC, and the major Independents. In the early 90s the 7 Conference System was altered when FSU, SC, and Penn St all joined conferences. The rest banded together into the Big East, all except ND.

Outside of the elites, you had the Big West, WAC, MAC, and a whole slew of independents and some of those independents and WAC schools were pretty good.

1996 really shook things up with the dawn of the Big 12 and the 6 conference system. Scheduling concerns scared the minor and mid-major independents all into conferences.

Looking back, I wish we still had the 7 conference system of Big Ten, Pac 10, Big 8, SWC, SEC, ACC, and Big East. It would make for an ideal playoff setting with the 7 champs and an at-large: either ND, a 2nd place/co-champ from a deep conference, or a great champ from outside the elite leagues.

That’s Pretty straight forward set up and everyone know what they need to do to get in. The only thing the committee has to do is pick the at-large team and sort out the seeding.

(09-19-2020 03:42 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-18-2020 10:03 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-18-2020 01:11 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-18-2020 01:00 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  The G5 has been a focus of many recent threads about teams that might switch conferences at some point, but the overall future of the G5 hasn't been discussed as much on this board.

I grew up watching college football in the 1970s, at that time what are today G5 programs were essentially invisible. Nobody outside their campuses knew anything about them.

In that regard, I am very happy that USF established football in 1997, on the cusp of the BCS, as the BCS/CFP era has been far and away the best time to ever be a non-Power program. My team gets more game exposure on TV today than Oklahoma and Alabama did in the 1980s.

Everything about now is better for the G5, so I basically expect that trend to continue.

Not true for SMU, Houston, Tulane and even Memphis and Cincinnati. They were known. Now most of CUSA and Sun Belt were FCS or Division II even. Half the MAC was until late 70s. Much of the western MWC was as well.

There is no way a current G5 conference becomes a power conference unless there is a separation and the P5 take one or two conferences along. They will still only be a mezzanine. It a G5 gets strong enough, a P5 will expand like they did with Utah and TCU.

Before the 1980s, Tulane and SMU were known. Houston was known for five minutes, as the team Joe Montana rallied against. Nobody ever heard of Memphis or Cincy in football.

Houston's rankings:
1968 #18
1969 #12
1970 #19
1971 #17
1973 #9
1974 #19
1976 #4 SWC champ
1978 #10 SWC champ
1979 #5 SWC champ

So if you hadn't heard of Houston, you simply weren't paying any attention to college football.

As for Cincinnati and Memphis, you may have heard more about them than you did as members of CUSA and pretty close to what you hear about them today when they aren't ranked. In the 70s, Memphis seemed to be more likely to play SEC schools than they are today. Memphis has been ranked 3 times in its history and only in the past 5 years. Cincinnati was never ranked until they joined the Big East.