Group of Five season preview takes a look at which team from the AAC, Sun Belt and Conference USA will get the New Year’s Six bowl bid.
After consecutive New Year’s Six appearances by the Central Florida Golden Knights, the Memphis Tigers won the American Athletic Conference. They played the Penn State Nittany Lions in the Cotton Bowl last season.
Their head coach, Mike Norvell, parlayed that into the head coaching job at Florida State University. With Memphis, Southern Methodist, Central Florida and Cinncinati in the fold, the AAC is the class of the Group of 5.
That does not mean they do not play good ball elsewhere in the Group of 5. The Appalachian State Mountaineers defeated both North and South Carolina last season and the Boise State Broncos defeated the Florida State Seminoles.
The Group of 5 representative will come from either the Sun Belt, AAC or Conference USA this season. Both the MAC and Mountain West have canceled football this fall due to COVID-19. Here is a preview of the three conferences who plan to play this fall.
Conference USA preview
As it currently stands, the plan for Conference USA is to play an 11-game schedule with two open dates. They are the plus-one for some Big 12 and ACC teams. Some Conference USA teams will play an FCS opponent for the non-conference schedule.
The Florida Atlantic Owls and the Alabama-Birmingham Blazers have been the class of the conference with each school winning the conference title the last two seasons. The Owls have won two of the previous three conference titles.
While Bill Clark is still the head coach of the Blazers, Lane Kiffin leaves the Owls to return to the SEC and Mississippi. Former Florida State head coach returns to Conference USA to take over the Owls program. Taggart was the head coach at Western Kentucky.
Louisiana Tech had the better overall record, but the Blazers won the head to head matchup which propelled them to the title game last season.
This season, the Blazers look to be the class of the west. The Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, their chief competition in the west, return two starters from last season’s defense and break in a new quarterback. In the east, the FAU Owls overhaul their entire coaching staff and return just nine starters from last season.
That could be too much to overcome, considering there was no spring or summer practice. Conference USA East looks to be pretty wide open as FAU returns to the pack. Western Kentucky might have the best defense in the division–if not the entire conference.
Keep an eye on the Rice Owls. Yes, they lost their first nine games. However, the Owls lost four of their first nine-game by one possession. The Owls did finish the season strong winning their last three games scoring 30 points in two of those three games. Mike Bloomgren is building something in Dallas.
Bloomgren brought the Stanford power running game to Rice, and they have a veteran defense with some talent at receiver this season. They might not be good enough to win the conference, but they are good enough to ruin it for someone else.