If you thought the gap between the P4 and G5 schools in college football was large before, it appears that gap is widening even more.
Throwing aside the fact that there is a huge revenue gap between P4 conferences and G5 conferences, the preseason rankings show that there is very little respect given to any G5 team at all. In the newly released preseason Coaches Poll, not only are there no G5 schools represented in the Top 25, but when looking at the “Also receiving votes’ list, you have to go all the way to 30th, where Memphis gets 44 votes. Boise State comes in at 31, and Liberty is 35th. There is no other G5 school in the Top 40.
That is 3 in the Top 40, compared to 37 in the Top 40. Considering that there are only 69 P4 schools, 54% of the P4 schools are represented, and only 5% of G5 schools are represented, again with none in the Top 25 at all.
Past of G5 vs P5
The G5 has always only had a portion of the pie regarding the early season rankings, but this is far worse than we’ve ever seen. Here are the past four years of how many teams were ranked in the Top 25 and Top 40 in the first Coaches Poll:
2023: 1 Team in the Top 25, 5 in the Top 40
2022: 3 Teams in Top 25, 6 in Top 40
2021: 3 Teams in 25, 10 in Top 40
2020: 2 Teams in the Top 25, 7 in the Top 40
Again, this isn’t to say that the G5 and P5 were ever on the same level, but when you look at years like 2021 where 25% of the Top 40 were G5 teams. So why is this happening?
Transfer Portal and NIL
Before the transfer portal was as big as it currently is, a G5 school was able to build up and become a real threat and be one of the top teams in college football. With the transfer portal now being as dominant as it is in college football and NIL deals being so lucrative, it is becoming very rare for a good G5 player to stay at their school rather than transfer to a bigger program that offers more NIL.
This makes it very difficult to create a winning culture and team that can truly build a team from one season to the next. If a team has a good season, by the next season all the top players are off somewhere else getting better exposure and making more money.
Money
This is perhaps the most obvious, but the SEC and Big 10 make more than 60X of MAC and CUSA’s TV revenue. This money can go towards recruiting facilities and allow donors to be more focused on giving to NIL. When a G5 school calls a donor, they ask for money to help pay for food and operating costs, while when a P4 school calls, they ask for money to cover locker room upgrades and NIL.
Media Interests
ESPN is paying the SEC billions of dollars to be the conference’s TV partner. The same can be said about FOX to the Big 10. With so much invested in these conferences, why wouldn’t ESPN focus primarily on SEC schools with their college football coverage? Why would they want to focus on a team from the Sun Belt when their investment in that conference is a fraction of what they pay for the SEC?
The media is very influential. When ESPN talks all off-season about P4 schools, it should come as no surprise when the AP, Coaches, and even the CFP Committee rank the P4 schools higher than G5 schools.
