(10-26-2018 02:58 PM)BlueBird10 Wrote: The Access Bowl selection for the G5 is down to 10 teams...teams with 1 loss or better. We know a two-loss Group of Five team is not even in the conversation any more.
In my opinion, this is where we're at as far as favorites to select from:
1. #10 UCF (7-0)
2. #21 USF (7-0)
3. Houston (6-1)
4. Cincinnati (6-1)
5. Fresno State (6-1)
6. San Diego State (6-1)
7. Utah State (6-1)
8. Georgia Southern (7-1)
9. Buffalo (7-1)
10. UAB (6-1)
I think you're on the right track, though I disagree that it's down to these 10 teams. It's not impossible that no G5 conference champion will have less than 2 losses - though I think that's unlikely. That will create some ugly campaigning...
But let's assume you're correct - that we're down to these ten teams. FPI (
http://www.espn.com/college-football/sta...eamratings) would rank them thusly:
1 - Fresno State
2 - UCF
3 - Utah State
4 - Houston
5 - Cincinnati
6 - USF
7 - UAB
8 - Georgia Southern
9 - San Diego State
10 - Buffalo
And if you run all of these teams through the CFB Analytics predictor (
https://www.cfbanalytics.com/predictions), they would predict the following records at the end of the season before the conference championship games (ranked by least number of losses):
1 - UCF (11-0)
T2 - Houston (11-1)
T2 - Fresno State (11-1)
T2 - Utah State (11-1)
T2 - Georgia Southern (11-1)
T6 - Cincinnati (10-2)
T6 - UAB (10-2)
T6 - Buffalo (10-2)
9 - USF (8-4)
10 - San Diego State (7-5)
So if (big if) all of this comes to pass, I think it would be safe to argue that the only two options would be the winner of the AAC or the MWC. I think it's clear that an undefeated AAC champion in UCF would get the nod, so they have to be the top ranked team. I think a compelling case could be made that beating that undefeated team (and the boost that would come from it) would likely make Houston the pick if they won over an MWC champ, but can understand arguments to the contrary. So I think I would argue that, as of TODAY, the rankings (based on probability of getting the bid) are:
1 - UCF
2 - Houston
3 - Fresno State
4 - Utah State
5 - Georgia Southern
6 - UAB
7 - Buffalo
8 - Cincinnati
9 - USF
10 - San Diego State
Ready for the replies...
USFFan