For the second half of the BCS's existence, no conference put more pressure on the entrenched system of power-conference hegemony than the Mountain West. With teams like Utah, TCU, and Boise State all staking their claim for national recognition, the league forced a new discussion around the place of these mid-major schools in the upper...
California v. Air Force
Amon G. Carter Stadium -- Fort Worth, TX
December 29, 2015 -- 2:00 pm Eastern (ESPN)
Why You Should Watch
A surprise division champion takes on a resurgent Power Five school that is returning to the postseason for the first time in four years. Six editions of this bowl game...
Everything is set, with all 40 bowl matchups now set in stone for the 2015 season. We now know that the American Athletic Conference was the undisputed king of the mid-major conferences, that Conference USA and the MAC overtook the Mountain West in the pecking order, and that the Sun Belt is still the caboose of the FBS leagues.
Let's...
For every contender left in the Access Bowl race in 2015, just one plot point remains for each of them as they all strive to present the strongest possible resume for the College Football Playoff selection committee to parse through. Four of the Group of Five conferences have winnowed down to their final two hopefuls in the race for the...
We are getting to a point in the 2015 season where determining which teams will win their respective Group of Five conferences is oddly becoming more difficult. What we are seeing, however, is a clear hierarchy emerging between the mid-major conferences.
Not all conference championships are created equal. Even as undefeated teams have...
With a couple of upsets and a wild comeback keeping things interesting within the Group of Five over Week 11, there is a lot more clarity in some divisions and a lot more confusion as to what might happen in others. This week we winnow down the rankings by one team to 14, as we focus exclusively on those teams that still have a...
This is coming at you late this week for personal reasons, but while we've already seen some weekday Week 11 games take place there is still no logical answer as to why we should not look back at last week's shakedown of the mid-major standings.
Because, in the end, there was a ton of chaos among the Access Bowl hopefuls. By the time...
Mid-major football teams no longer have to sit and hope that they can overcome the vagaries of the BCS calculations to see whether or not they will merit consideration for a big-time bowl bid. A guaranteed slot now exists for the top Group of Five champion to play in one of the New Year's Six bowl games. But perhaps there will be reason...
Just when you think the picture is beginning to settle, everything goes haywire yet again. Before we even hit the weekend proper, both the Sun Belt and Mountain West pictures had been inverted. Georgia Southern fell decisively to Appalachian State, and MWC West leader San Diego State dispelled the myth that theirs is the weaker...
Let's assess where things stand in each conference before we dive into looking at each team. Assume, for a moment, that total chaos has to emerge at this point for a three-loss team to have a truly viable shot of stealing away the New Year's Six slot, so conference champions in the running for the Access Bowl slot will probably have to...
