The Case for a G5 Playoff

The "Group of 5" is stuck in a second tier without the benefits that usually come with being in a second tier. As the power leagues take more for themselves, the G5 deserve something of their own.

I went to seven college football national championship games last year. I went to Houston to see Michigan win the the College Football Playoff championship game. You probably watched in on TV. But college football is bigger than even its biggest game. I also went to the FCS championship in Frisco, the HBCU championship game in Atlanta, the Division III championship in Salem, Virginia, the NAIA championship game in Durham, the juco championship game in Little Rock, and the sprint football championship in West Point.

There is one large swath of college football teams whose championship I did not attend, because it does not exist: The “Group of 5,” the conferences which are technically a part of the top tier of college football, but are not the power conferences which more-or-less run the sport. (The five leagues: the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.) They’re eligible for the national championship Michigan won, they’re not supposed to actually dream of winning it.

Last month, CBS Sports reported a proposal for a G5 playoff. The proposal was apparently pitched by former Louisiana Tech and Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley on behalf of unnamed private equity firms. I’m not a finance expert, but I am a Bad Football Coach expert, and this concerns me. Private equity firms are often criticized as short-sighted cash-chasers who have no care for the long-term health of the industries they take over, and no understanding of how to achieve success in those fields. Working with Dooley does not exactly give the impression they have paid a lot of attention to football and what success in the industry looks like. Everything about this screams red flag.

I don’t want to focus too much on the details of that specific proposal. I’d like to talk more broadly about why G5 football programs should have their own playoff—hopefully without handing over financial control to cash-hungry jackals on the advice of the second-worst Tennessee coach anybody can remember.

“Group of 5” is not an official title, which explains a lot of their predicament. It’s a placeholder with no swag or appeal, chosen out of laziness to define these conferences by what they are not. Creating an official name for these leagues would require them to work together to achieve common goals, which would require them admitting they have common goals, which would require them admitting they are not temporarily embarrassed power conferences.

The main argument against stronger G5 organization comes from they’re already in the best possible scenario, the highest rung of the massive college football pyramid. The Athletic’s story on the proposed playoff includes a quote from outgoing American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco: “It would separate us from the big guys in the CFP, and that would be bad…It’s what I’ve always feared, that we’d be in a different division.” It’s understandable. Nobody wants to be second-class.

Aresco (who, coincidentally, retires today) has been a long-time fighter for the idea that there’s nothing special about the biggest conferences, and that more attention should be paid to the other leagues. He even tried to capitalize on a run of success for American programs by rebranding the league as a “Power 6” conference through the sheer power of marketing. But saying the American was in the same boat as the big boys didn’t make it true. In the end, four of the league’s best programs left for the Big 12 and ACC.

For years, G5 schools have hoped to avoid second-tier status by merely being a part of the most profitable and relevant level of the sport. It has never worked. Everybody knows there are massive gaps between the power leagues and everybody else, even if they’re in the same bureaucratic subdivision.

Perhaps this would be fine in a world where G5 schools could rely on the steady fringe benefits of proximity to the power leagues for future stability. But this sport is undergoing massive upheaval. The power conferences have progressed from simply excluding outsiders to actively taking each other down. Banking on the power conferences for long-term stability seems somewhere between laughable and suicidal. They’re not going to save you! They’re actively trying to kill each other!

G5 schools have become stuck in a second tier without any of the benefits that teams playing in second tiers usually get. It’s time for them to create something real of their own.

I’m a bit surprised that I’m arguing for a G5 playoff. For years, I took almost the exact opposite approach, instead arguing for greater inclusion for G5 programs in the College Football Playoff. I was in the trenches yelling about undefeated teams like UCF, trying to convince anybody who would listen that they deserved playoff bids after their undefeated seasons.

And in a couple of key ways, I got what I wanted: In 2021, Cincinnati got into the 4-team playoff as a member of the AAC. (Sure, they had to go undefeated twice to get in once, but still.) And starting with this year’s Playoff, one of the spots in the new 12-team format is guaranteed to go to a G5 champion.

But neither victory felt particularly convincing. Cincinnati making the postseason didn’t usher in a new age of respect for non-power leagues—instead, they were mocked for being non-competitive in a Cotton Bowl loss to Alabama, and Cincinnati took the first opportunity they got to ditch the AAC for a power league, joining the Big 12 for the 2023 season.

I went to Cincinnati’s first Big 12 game, against Oklahoma. Their fans were now power conference enthusiasts. Just the year before, their team had to play road games at Tulsa and Temple, and now, Oklahoma was in their stadium. Yes, the system was unfair, but Cincinnati had won by graduating to the side which benefitted from the unfairness.

This isn’t a dig on Cincinnati fans so much as an illustration of how the current system works. In the current system, G5 membership can never be something to be proud of; only a burden to be left behind. The best thing that can happen to a G5 program isn’t an on-field accomplishment, but a power league call-up that allows the program to escape.

The G5 spot in the 12-team playoff, though, offers a more permanent fix. It’s not about any one team. It’s an ongoing acknowledgment that good football is played in these lower leagues, and a promise to give these teams a shot. And as a college basketball romantic who spends most of March waxing poetic about the beauty of a system which gives mid-majors a theoretical shot, I thought this was all I wanted.

But it’s still a pretty weak concession A 12-team playoff is enough for every conference champion to get a spot, plus a few other at-large teams from power conferences! That’s how every other college sport works! It’s how it works in basketball, and FCS Division II and Division III football, and the all-division beach volleyball championship, and so on and so forth. (You could argue that G5 football programs are just about the only college athletic teams in any sport with no straightforward path to a championship tournament berth.) But the system everybody else has was never on the table. Negotiations for future playoff formats were not about trying to get more slots for G5 leagues, but the Big Ten and SEC asking for multiple guaranteed slots.

And the G5 playoff spot came with a weakened financial payout. The old College Football Playoff contract gave 22 percent of revenue to G5 schools, split between the five leagues and their 70-plus schools. The new contract has cut their share by more than half, down to a 9 percent payout. Meanwhile, the SEC and Big Ten will get 29 percent of the revenue each. The financial distribution to individual SEC and Big Ten schools is not that far away from the amount going to entire G5 leagues.

But when the bill is due, the opposite dynamic is in effect. The House v. NCAA court case has led to a $2.8 billion settlement with players who were deprived of the ability to make money from their NIL rights. And the split on that payment doesn’t resemble the split from the playoff payouts. The power leagues will pay around 40 percent the portion left to the individual conferences, while the G5 leagues are responsible for 17 percent. So the power leagues get about 10 times as much of the playoff money coming in, but only have to pay twice as much of the settlement money going out. Why are G5 schools responsible for such a large share of the House debt when they get such a small share of the Playoff revenue?

It’s remarkable gall and greed from the power conferences. They had a set-up where G5 schools happily participated in a system in exchange for skimpy payouts and a hypothetical dream of playoff inclusion. For a relatively low price, the power leagues had purchased a permanent underclass to look down on. But that wasn’t enough. They’re choosing to squeeze as much as they can out of schools which have so little to give.

This should tell the people in charge of G5 conferences and schools everything they need to know. Power conferences don’t see the massive gaps between themselves and everybody else as a problem to be erased, but an advantage they will build upon. A G5 school which performs well is not evidence the G5 leagues deserve a seat at the table, but rather an opportunity for a power league to poach a program that can boost their conference. Whatever money G5 schools make is just a slush fund the power leagues can bank on when they need to bail themselves out of a mess. The power leagues will never give, and only take. This is not a symbiotic relationship, but a predatory one.

It’s degrading to be “included” in a system where you can’t win. It sets a Sisyphean goal you can never accomplish, and dims the shine on the achievements you actually can earn. After all, this isn’t just about money. It’s about identity. And “being in the same bureaucratic classification as larger schools” is not an identity.

I learned something at all those “other” national title games. The people at the FCS or DIII or NAIA games didn’t fly to their championship games upset about not competing for a more prominent title. Nobody celebrates a championship by saying “by the way, there are actually larger and more popular leagues out there.” People strive to be the best they can be, rather than focusing on what they’re not. 

A G5 playoff wouldn’t fix all the problems faced by G5 schools. It wouldn’t put them on a level financial playing field with the big boys, and it wouldn’t stop the ongoing exodus of players, coaches, and even programs to schools and leagues with bigger budgets. Nothing will. They have to accept that.

The Group of 5 should have a playoff because they deserve something of their own, rather than being expected to be happy from merely being associated with bigger schools. They deserve goals based on their own accomplishments, rather than permanently fighting uphill against schools with bigger budgets. They deserve the thing that made us all became sports fans in the first place: They deserve something to dream about.