Best of the Rest

Can a non-"power" program ever again win college football's ultimate prize? Should they even try?

Last night, Georgia won the College Football Playoff (CFP), and with it, the program's first national championship since 1980. While seeing the country's best teams play head-to-head for the title is exciting, I can't help but wonder: What about the little guys?

It's been an ongoing controversy for years in the upper echelon of college football that the smaller, so-called "Mid-Major" Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) programs (more commonly known today as the "Group of Five") are routinely denied the opportunity to play for a national championship. However, what if the best Group of Five teams were recognized at the end of each season and awarded a "national championship" of their own? Certainly, they deserve something for their efforts, aside from brush off from the CFP Selection Committee and a spot in a consolation bowl game.

Side-stepping the overarching controversy for now, I decided to take a look back at the past few seasons to see which of these teams can claim the title of "Best of the Rest".

Methodology

Before I could begin compiling my list, I needed to pick a starting point. I settled on 1992, since that was the inaugural year of the "Bowl Coalition", college football's first attempt at an organized national championship at the FBS level.

The 1984 BYU Cougars are the last non-"power" football program to win the national championship, though it wasn't without controversy.

Next, I had to figure out which teams were eligible. While the distinction between "Power" and "Mid-Major" teams today is fairly clear, such wasn't the case in 1992. After some research, I determined that programs that met the following criteria were sufficiently "Mid-Major" teams beginning in 1992:

- Teams belonging to the following conferences:

○ Big West

○ Mid-American

○ Western Athletic

- Independent Programs EXCEPT Notre Dame and Penn State

It goes without saying that the college football landscape has shifted quite a bit since 1992: Teams have switched conferences and some conferences have merged or folded while new ones have been formed. Additionally, many programs moved up from "Mid-Major" to "Power" status as a result of the realignments that occurred over the years; this is why you may see some teams on my list that today are considered "Power" programs.

Finally, I had to decide how to select the best mid-major team each season. This was actually the simplest part: I picked the highest-ranked mid-major team(s) in the final AP & Coaches poll each season. 

The reason is simple: Introduced in 1936 and 1950 respectively, the AP and Coaches polls are widely considered the definitive college football polls (often call the "major wire service polls"). Each team that finishes ranked #1 in either poll has a legitimate claim to the title "National Champion". Therefore, to crown the mid-major nation champions, I used the same polls that are used to determine the FBS national champions.

Mid-Major Champions

Without further ado, here's my list of mid-major College Football Champions* (since 1992):

1992 - Hawaii

1993 - Louisville

1994 - Utah

1995 - Toledo (AP), East Carolina (Coaches)

1996 - BYU

1997 - Colorado State

1998 - Tulane

1999 - Marshall

2000 - Colorado State (2)

2001 - Louisville (2)

2002 - Boise State

2003 - Boise State (2)

2004 - Utah (2)

2005 - TCU

2006 - Boise State (3)

2007 - BYU (2)

2008 - Utah (3)

2009 - Boise State (4)

2010 - TCU (2)

2011 - Boise State (5)

2012 - Utah State (AP), Boise State (Coaches) (6)

2013 - UCF**

2014 - Boise State (7)

2015 - Houston

2016 - Western Michigan

2017 - UCF (2)

2018 - UCF (3)

2019 - Memphis

2020 - Cincinnati

2021 - Cincinnati (2)

2022 - Tulane (2)

2023 - SMU

*All schools listed are consensus champions unless otherwise noted.

**For 2013 only, the American Athletic Conference inherited the former Big East Conference's automatic BCS bid due to a contractual obligation. However, for competition purposes, the American is considered a mid-major conference.

By conference:

- WAC, Mountain West (9)

- American (8)

- C-USA, MAC (3)

- Independent (2)

Looking Ahead

While retroactively selecting the top mid-major team each season is an interesting academic exercise, that's all it really amounts to. After all, there's no championship associated with being a season's top-performing mid-major team, only a statistical distinction. The controversy of mid-major teams being excluded from the CFP isn't going anywhere: In fact, after Cincinnati was denied a berth in the 2020 College Football Playoff after completing an undefeated regular season, the rancor only grew louder. In 2021, the Bearcats were finally rewarded for putting together second consecutive undefeated regular season with a spot in the Playoff, only to be smashed in the semifinal round by Alabama by a score of 27-6.

Despite being the only undefeated team in the nation, Cincinnati was no match for Alabama in the 2021 Cotton Bowl

One idea being kicked around is expanding the CFP with one spot guaranteed for the highest-ranked Group of Five team. That way, the Group of Five will always be included in the national championship picture.

However, even this system does not address the fundamental issue with pitting the Power Five against the Group of Five: Parity. Even if the Group of Five were always granted a spot in the playoffs, they would likely never make it all the way to the championship due to the competitive gap between college football's "Haves" and "Have-nots".

Instead, I would rather see a system where the top Group of Five teams play one another for a championship that each has a fair chance of winning, as opposed the selecting the single best Group of Five team and sending them to be destroyed on national TV by the country's top Power Five team. Call it the "Mid-Major National Championship" or name it after a sponsor ("The Domino's Pizza Championship presented by Mountain Dew" has a nice ring to it). All I'm saying is give the little guys something to play for other than a mediocre bowl and or near-certain defeat at the hands of Alabama.