The College Football Playoff invites 12 teams to its postseason party, and they leave a seat at the end of the table for someone from the Group of Five. It is, after all, a nice thing to do, inviting one of the smaller schools. 

That spot is still wide open this year, and heading into Thursday night's game in San Antonio against USTA, the Tulane Green Wave felt pretty good about their chances. They were 6-1 with their only loss to No. 7 Ole Miss, and they had Power 4 wins over Duke and Northwestern on their resume, too.

But all of that good news took a massive hit Thursday when they lost 48-26 to the Roadrunners (4-4). The Green Wave defense gave up 523 yards, with UTSA quarterback Owen McCown passing for 370 yards and four touchdowns. He completed 31 of 33 passes. McCown is the son of former NFL quarterback Josh McCown.

“Starts with me, and ends with me,” Tulane coach Jon Sumrall told reporters after the game. “We got our butts kicked. “McCown played lights out. I thought he was the best returning quarterback in our league coming into the year, and he played like it tonight.

“We blew a coverage or two, wrong leverage on a few,” Sumrall admitted. “Just things that were uncharacteristic. When we created a negative play, they found a way out of it. When they created one on us, we didn’t.”

Here's the full game story from Tulane Roundtable reporter Elizabeth Keen.

Tulane’s College Football Playoff Hopes Take Massive Hit in 48-26 Loss to Roadrunners The Tulane Green Wave struggled in every way against UTSA, ultimately dropping a game that was crucial to College Football Playoff hopes in an embarrassing fashion.

The loss was hard to swallow, because the UTSA game was the prelude to next Friday's huge showdown between Tulane and No. 25. The winner would have had a clear path to the American Athletic Conference title game.

The best Group of Five teams seem to coming from the American, but James Madison (Sun Belt) and Boise State (Mountain West) are still in the conversation, too. So are Memphis, South Florida, Tulane and Navy in the American.

There's still a lot of football to be played, but Tulane has made it tougher on themselves now.