If there hasn’t been enough evidence the past few seasons for the college football P4 leagues to completey break away from the G5, the announcement that Missouri State will be joining the CUSA should be enough to break the camel’s back.
There is not a single person who can honestly say that Missouri State and Alabama are truly competing for the same championship. Don’t get me wrong, Missouri State jumping up to the CUSA is a great accomplishment for them and will open up opportunities that they’ve never had, but saying they are fighting for the same Championship as Georgia, Alabama, and Michigan is simply not fair.
There has been an argument for splitting up the Power conferences and the Group of Five conferences for quite some time, but today there is more evidence than ever.
1. The Transfer Portal
Before the transfer portal was a thing, there were years where a team could strike gold with a few key players and after a year or two of building up be a legitimate dangerous team. TCU, Utah, UCF, and Boise State are all examples of teams who were able to do this in the pre-transfer portal era. All four of these teams should have (but didn’t) have a real chance at winning a national championship despite having phenomenal teams.
All of these teams that took a few years to develop their players to the point where they were ready to compete at the highest level. It didn’t happen in just one season.
The transfer portal is changing that. Sure, a G5 team may still strike gold with a player, but unless they really elevate their game to the point of being a contender in a single season, that player is almost certain to leave the next season and leave the team back at square one.
2. Changes in College Football Conferences
The past five years have seen quite a bit of change in college football conferences. Most notably, BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, UCF, and SMU have jumped from the G5 to the P4 level. Aside from Boise State and San Diego State, and Memphis, there aren’t many teams left in the G5 conference that draw any kind of national attention or respect.
Additionally, the G5 has been watered down with new additions. Sam Houston State, Kennesaw State, Delaware, Jacksonville State, James Madison, Old Dominion, and now Missouri State are all teams in the last five years to either move or announce they will be moving to the G5 level.
Somehow North Dakota State and South Dakota State, the only two FCS schools that would actually elevate the G5 conferences have been left behind. With these changes with the P4 elevated teams and the G5 additions, the divide in quality of teams has never been as evident as now.
Missouri State moves up to Conference USA in 2025 from FCS, becoming 12th football member https://t.co/XiI5pflyrK
— KSDK News (@ksdknews) May 11, 2024
3. Money, Money, Money
Money drives college football and with the newest college football tv contracts coming in, the gap between the P4 and G5 conferences has never been greater, heck the difference between the SEC/Big 10and Big 12/ACC has never been bigger.
For some reference, here is how much conference is set to be making in the next few years: (NOTE: The exact numbers vary site to site and some include secondary rights, others don’t, but these come from SB Nation).
- Big 10 – $71.7 Million annually beginning in 2023
- SEC – $68.7 Million annually beginning in 2024
- Big 12 – $31.7 Million annually beginning in 2024
- ACC $17.1 Million annually since 2016 (rising)
It is expected that the Big 12 and ACC will both be around $35 million before secondary TV rights.
- AAC – About $7 million annually
- Mountain West $3.4 million annually
- CUSA – $800K annually
- MAC – $670K annually
- Sun Belt – $500K annually
Conclusion
Look, we all love a good Cinderella story where an underdog overcomes all the odds and pulls of the impossible, but come on, no team in the Sun Belt that is making 142X less than the Big 10 in revenue (not to mention NIL) is going to rise up and win a national championship in a 12-team playoff. It simply isn’t going to happen.
I love college football, and over the years have loved watching the small G5 schools take down P5 teams in big bowl games, but there is a reason that the last non-power team to win a national championship was BYU back in 1984. Nobody under the age of 50 even remembers that game.
It’s time for a split. Let the G5 have their own playoff and the P4 have their own.
