Ranking the Group of Five Teams Fighting for the Final College Football Playoff Spot

There is a very real universe in which the ACC misses the playoffs, and two non-power-conference teams sneak in. In most years, I would love to live in that world, but I don’t think there are two teams that can compete in the playoffs this year.

For this exercise, we are going to assume that Virginia takes care of business, and the Group of Five is playing for the 12th seed. Three teams are fighting for one spot, so I’m going to rank those teams by who I think is the best bet to make the playoffs. UNLV technically isn’t eliminated yet, but I would be shocked if they were able to jump over JMU or either team fighting out of the AAC.

With those guidelines out of the way, let’s get into the rankings.

JMU +130

Of the three Group of Five teams with a real shot at making the playoffs, JMU has the lowest odds to make it. However, I think they’re the best bet because they’re 23.5-point favorites in their conference championship.

North Texas and Tulane are playing an elimination game against each other, and if neither of them impresses — and JMU can blow out Troy — that can make an excellent case for the final playoff spot.

Outside of an easy conference championship, the Dukes have a very solid résumé. Their only loss is to a good Louisville team, with whom they were tied going into the 4th quarter. They beat six bowl-eligible teams, and they have the highest strength of record of the three teams. Hopefully, the committee ignores their weak strength of schedule in this scenario.

North Texas -135

There’s nothing that people love more in college football than a great story, and North Texas has just that.

If you haven’t heard by now, Drew Mestemaker never played a varsity snap as a quarterback in high school, walked on at North Texas, and is now the FBS leader in passing yards. It’s a story Disney wouldn’t even try to write because it sounds so ridiculous.

North Texas has by far the best offense in the Group of Five. I prefer when a Group of Five team leans on their offense instead of their defense, as that plays better against stiffer competition.

The only reason I don’t have them as my number one team is that their odds aren’t great, and they got blown out in one of their two conference-play challenges against USF. Also, North Texas’s strength of schedule will go up after they play Tulane, but for all this talk of JMU playing such an easy schedule, North Texas actually has a lower strength of schedule as of now.

I just don’t see how they are currently the favorite.

Tulane +115

I have Tulane in third because they have two losses. At the end of the day, the committee is made up of humans, and having two losses on their schedule makes things an uphill battle. However, Tulane is the only team here to schedule challenging out-of-conference games and win them.

They beat Duke, who might win a conference championship, and Northwestern, who is playing in a bowl game. However, the losses are rough. Ole Miss completely outclassed them, and UTSA ran them out of the Alamodome.

We’re still waiting to see if the committee respects quality wins or quantity of losses more — that’s why I am unwilling to bet on them to make the dance.