Group of 5 Power Rankings: Who will land spot in CFP?

From 2006 to 2010, teams from outside college football's power conferences finished the season in the AP top 10 seven times, including a pair that landed in the top two (Utah in 2008, TCU in 2010). Boise State beat Oklahoma in a BCS bowl in 2006, Utah beat Alabama in 2008, and after two mid-majors (TCU and Boise) were forced to play each other in a major 2009 bowl, TCU was somehow allowed into the Rose Bowl in 2010 and beat Wisconsin.

As the push for a college football playoff grew, one of the main reasons for it was to grant these teams well-earned access to the national title race. In the seminal "Death to the BCS," authors Dan Wetzel, Jeff Passan and Josh Peter proposed a 16-team playoff with bids for the champions of all 11 FBS conferences, and it didn't feel particularly outlandish. (It is, after all, how virtually every other level of football, from high school to smaller colleges to the NFL, works.)

The sport's ruling powers responded as monopolies always do: They successfully acquired some of the opposition and tried to starve the rest of it. TCU (Big 12) and Utah (Pac-12) joined power conferences in 2012, while Cincinnati (after top-10 finishes in 2020 and '21), UCF (top-11 in 2017 and '18), Houston (top-10 in 2015) and BYU (top-20 in 2020 and '21) all joined the Big 12 in 2023 and SMU hopped up to the ACC in 2024.

In the meantime, the College Football Playoff we actually got featured only four teams -- one extra game, basically -- and in 10 years of the four-team playoff, 39 of 40 bids went to power-conference teams. The money became even more skewed toward power conferences, and a weakened Group of 5 saw results diminish. The best G5 teams were guaranteed a spot in a New Year's Six bowl and won three of their first four; they've won only one of the past six. The results have remained mostly respectable, but last year saw the first genuinely lopsided matchup to date: Oregon's 45-6 Fiesta Bowl pummeling of Liberty.

Now, with the mid-major ranks thinned and the money set to become even more ludicrously skewed toward the sport's powers, the Group of 5 finally gets access with the 12-team playoff. For the first time ever, we know that a G5 team will get a spot in the playoff field. And you know what? HELL, YES.

The G5 level constantly produces overachievers and great stories; over the past five seasons, 45 different G5 teams beat at least one power-conference team, and 14 finished with top-30 SP+ rankings. Troy and James Madison landed there just last season, and Tulane beat USC in the Cotton Bowl the year before. SP+ projections rarely are particularly kind to mid-majors because of turnover and recruiting rankings, but someone always produces high quality.

Thinned ranks or not, the G5 is going to produce exciting stories and fun teams, and at least one of them will get access to a title shot. Let's talk about who that may be.

Group of 5 Power Rankings

Here are the top 10 G5 teams according to the preseason SP+ ratings. I'm including some experimental CFP odds for each team, plus their three toughest games (by SP+), top players and biggest question mark.

1. Boise State Broncos

SP+ rank: 39
SP+ strength of schedule rank: 79
CFP odds, per SP+: 10.6%

Three toughest games: at No. 3 Oregon (Sept. 7), No. 50 Oregon State (Nov. 30), No. 57 Washington State (Sept. 28)

Most playoff-worthy players: RB Ashton Jeanty, ILB Andrew Simpson, DE Ahmed Hassanein, WR Cameron Camper, LT Kage Casey, NB Ty Benefield