G5 teams are seen as unqualified for the College Football Playoff, yet their coaches excel, filling top SEC jobs. Does talent transcend conference lines in college football's hierarchy?
The discourse surrounding the College Football Playoff bracket has felt more toxic this season despite the second year of a 12-team format presumably offering more opportunity. The big heads at the top don’t see it that way unless those opportunities are exclusive to them. While the Boise State Broncos were given some leeway with a Heisman candidate in Ashton Jeanty, their subsequent elimination as the Group of Five champion immediately gave the powers that be justification to change the seeding to make sure no G5 team hosts a playoff game.
The Broncos weren’t the only G5 team to get ranked last year. This season, it’s felt like the CFP committee has only allocated one slot to a Group of Five team, barring a shakeup in Tuesday’s Week 14 rankings where they might decide to charitably add one or two this late in the year. But the message has been clear: the G5 doesn’t belong in the conversation.
If that’s the case, why are three coaches from the American conference qualified to be SEC head coaches? Tulane Green Wave’s Jon Sumrall is now coach of the Florida Gators, South Florida Bulls’ Alex Golesh went to the Auburn Tigers, and Memphis Tigers’ Ryan Silverfield was hired by the Arizona Razorbacks. North Texas Mean Green coach Eric Morris is heading to the Big 12 with the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Oh, and James Madison Dukes’ coach Bob Chesney is off to the Big Ten to the UCLA Bruins.
But the premium conference in college football is the SEC. Five jobs opened up in the conference this season. All but two were filled by a Group of Five coach, with Kentucky hiring Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein and the LSU Tigers poaching Lane Kiffin. And not only was Sumrall hired by Florida, but he was the presumed favorite for the eventual Ole Miss Rebels opening and turned down the Tigers who also wanted his services. His team is the only one to be ranked in the Week 13 CFP rankings. But they apparently don’t belong on the field.
The gap between the Group of Five and Power Four is simultaneously growing and narrowing in different ways. The resource race makes it nearly impossible for G5 programs to compete monetarily in the transfer portal and with NIL. But they arguably have a better shot at the playoffs than half the schools in the SEC. Perhaps that’s for a reason more than “parity.” Perhaps not every team, not every player, not every coach belongs. But perhaps one does. Maybe people don’t see it that way this season, but they certainly did last year. Shouldn’t that be enough?
In the four-team format, only four teams were talked about all season. Half of the games became meaningless. Now, games matter late into November, and yes, that includes Group of Five games. One of them beat a potential ACC champ in the Duke Blue Devils, who are given the Power Four benefit of the doubt should they somehow manage to win.
Now, it’s not exactly a list of the most coveted SEC openings – outside the Gators. And Sumrall, with his resources growing exponentially at Florida, is likely best positioned to succeed. Of the three coaches in the American to be hired by the SEC, he’s the only one that’s won conference championships as a head coach, and the only one of the three to reach the American Conference Championship – and he brought his team there back-to-back. Golesh and Silverfield have harder uphill battles with their respective locations. But they are now coaching the teams who the top of the SEC beat and claim to be the best as a result.
If the American wasn’t a worthy conference, then not a single one of those three would have the resume to land an SEC opening. That would be incompatible with excluding that conference champion from a shot at the College Football Playoff.