Group of Five teams feel left out
Coastal Carolina did everything it was asked and then some.
The Chanticleers played 11 games during a pandemic that wreaked havoc on schedules nationwide and won them all. That includes beating previously unbeaten Brigham Young in its final regular-season game on short notice, pulling out a victory in one of the season’s most exciting games.
That wasn’t enough for the Sun Belt co-champions to even get close to the College Football Playoff. The Chanticleers were No. 12 in the rankings released Sunday.
Cincinnati got snubbed, too. The Bearcats defeated Tulsa on Saturday in the American Athletic Conference championship game to remain undefeated, yet the Bearcats finished No. 8 in the standings.
Once again, Group of Five teams have no representation in the College Football Playoff. That’s been the case every year since the current format was introduced for the 2014 season.
“If a G-5 team wasn’t going to make it this year, I don’t know if they’re ever going to make it, just because of all the circumstances,” Coastal Carolina coach Jamey Chadwell said.
Cincinnati was rewarded with a New Year’s Six game — the Bearcats will play Georgia in the Peach Bowl. But Coastal was left out of the top-tier games. The Chanticleers will play Liberty in the Cure Bowl on Dec. 26.
Chadwell called not getting a New Year’s Six bid “disappointing.”
“I thought this year they might think differently because this year, outside of the top four, maybe the top six — we’ll say top six — our resume, Cincinnati’s resume, was just as good as everybody else’s,” he said. “I thought maybe in this year, maybe they would put two G-5’s together. Let us and Cincinnati play each other because the eye test was such a big deal. Let’s see what happens in that game.”
It wasn’t just the Group of Five teams that got bruised. No. 5 Texas A&M, with only a loss to top-ranked Alabama and seven straight wins in the rugged Southeastern Conference, finished No. 5 in the playoff rankings. The SEC often gets the benefit of the doubt, but not this time.
Texas A&M got a decent consolation prize: The Aggies will play North Carolina in the Orange Bowl.
That’s the kind of bowl bid Chadwell thought Coastal deserved. He said the system is working exactly as expected.
“Is it broken? Depends on who is it broken for,” he said. “For the G-5’s, it is. I don’t think it was ever fixed for them. For the Power 5s and for what they’re trying to get there, it’s working out the way they want it to work out.”