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The thread starts out with this post:

"Just glancing at early previews and teams (no, I don’t have enough time to look at every team) and the 15-25 spots in the rankings could be taken over by the G5 this coming season:

Cincy (this is almost a Top 10 team)
UCF
Louisiana
Coastal or App
Liberty (not in G5 conf but I would put them in that perception)
Boise
UAB (say homer if you like, but UAB returns nearly everyone)

I would assume at least one team comes out of nowhere...happens every year. Even if not, that’s 7-8 teams likely to be knocking of the door of top 25 this season. "

https://csnbbs.com/thread-922659.html

This is a topic of interest to all G5 fans, including AAC fans. It's great to see such optimism about the possibilities for the non-P5 teams in 2021.

2020 was the first season since the P5 split in which there were 8 teams in the final AP top 25 and more than 1 or 2 non-P5 teams (Cincy, BYU, Coastal, & Louisiana) in or near the final AP Top 15.

If the steady, year-over-year increase in upper echelon non-P5 teams continues to increase, the argument to open up the college football playoffs to non-P5 teams will only grow stronger.

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If it continues to be AL, Clemson, OSU, sometimes OU & a couple of other SEC wannabes, the stronger AAC & G4 top schools should begin to occupy more & more of the top 25.

(05-28-2021 06:42 PM)Atlanta Wrote:  If it continues to be AL, Clemson, OSU, sometimes OU & a couple of other SEC wannabes, the stronger AAC & G4 top schools should begin to occupy more & more of the top 25.

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That's a very interesting point.

I hadn't thought of that, but come to think of it, there have been some reports that the top 6 or 8 schools have been scooping up a larger and larger share of the top recruits, who want to play on teams with the greatest chance of playing in the CFP.

One of the effects might be to deprive the other P5 teams of many of the top-tier players that they otherwise might have recruited, causing them to lose more games. This, in turn, could help to explain why more and more non-P5 teams have been making their way onto the final top 25 lists.

If anything, this might be a persuasive argument why most of the P5 schools should favor an expansion of the CFP, if they're savvy enough to "grok" this issue. Moreover, it would probably be best from their standpoint for most of them to support an expansion to 16, since a 8-team CFP wouldn't distribute the top talent across a much wider range of P5 programs.

It would be deliciously ironic if "the law of unintended consequences" has paradoxically contributed to the steady increase in the number of non-P5 teams in the final top 25 over the past several seasons.

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I for one have no interest in the success of the G4s either as individual schools or as conferences.
I suppose upsets are fun, and specific storylines like the late breaking BYU Coastal Carolina game, with the equipment truck being on the move before the deal was signed, are good for the sport.
But one of the two key lines of effort of the AAC strategic plan, often referred to in shorthand as P6, is separation from the G4. It's been a talking point of our Commissioner. For a year or more he's even been saying "G4" and "Group of 4" talking about 34 metrics showing that the AAC is separating from them.
One reason that is a key talking point is that it's easier to sell than the other key line of effort of keeping pace with the autonomy conferences. Even if the case CAN be made statistically that we are keeping pace or closing the gap in on field performance or some off field metrics, that perception is harder to win than the perception that we're separating from the G4s.

(05-28-2021 06:17 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  .

The thread starts out with this post:

"Just glancing at early previews and teams (no, I don’t have enough time to look at every team) and the 15-25 spots in the rankings could be taken over by the G5 this coming season:

Cincy (this is almost a Top 10 team)
UCF
Louisiana
Coastal or App
Liberty (not in G5 conf but I would put them in that perception)
Boise
UAB (say homer if you like, but UAB returns nearly everyone)

FIFY

(05-28-2021 06:17 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  If the steady, year-over-year increase in upper echelon non-P5 teams continues to increase, the argument to open up the college football playoffs to non-P5 teams will only grow stronger.

I think what has happened is the CFP has created more "top heavy" conferences among the G5 as well as the P5.

A G5 champ that goes 9-4 has no chance of being ranked. But a 12-2 champ will be ranked, and that has been happening more frequently the past 5 or so years, I think.

For example, from 2008 - 2013, the last six years of the BCS, the CUSA champ on average finished the season, including bowls, with 3.7 losses.

From 2014 - 2019, the first six full years of the CFP, the CUSA champ has on average finished the season with 2.5 losses.

(05-30-2021 09:43 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-28-2021 06:17 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  If the steady, year-over-year increase in upper echelon non-P5 teams continues to increase, the argument to open up the college football playoffs to non-P5 teams will only grow stronger.

I think what has happened is the CFP has created more "top heavy" conferences among the G5 as well as the P5.

A G5 champ that goes 9-4 has no chance of being ranked. But a 12-2 champ will be ranked, and that has been happening more frequently the past 5 or so years, I think.

That is definitely true.

(05-30-2021 09:43 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  For example, from 2008 - 2013, the last six years of the BCS, the CUSA champ on average finished the season, including bowls, with 3.7 losses.

From 2014 - 2019, the first six full years of the CFP, the CUSA champ has on average finished the season with 2.5 losses.

That's a noteworthy point. A team that finishes 11-2 or even 10-3 has a much better chance to end up in the top 25 than a 9-4 team does.


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Of course, it's a little early for predictions, yet, and nobody knows right now whether there will once again be 7 or 8 non-P5 teams in the final top 25 next January, as there were in 2019 and 2020.

However, we do know that there were some very good AAC and SBC teams, a couple of MWC teams that were pretty good, and that there were a couple of very good FBS independents.

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The pre-season rankings, of course, will only have two - maybe three non-P5 teams in their top 25 lists. That's been standard procedure every year since the P-5 split in 2012-13. But it's also been standard procedure for there to have been a lot more non-P5 teams in the final top 25 lists than there've been in the pre-season top 25 lists.

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