Growing number of G-5 schools considers their own playoff

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Northern Illinois athletic director Sean Frazier is among a growing number of Group of 5 officials that favor adding a playoff specifically for the Group of 5 schools.

"It's time to have a realistic conversation about creating a playoff for the Group of 5," Frazier told ESPN. "Why not?"

It's been 32 years since a non-Power 5 team won a national championship (BYU in 1984) and it likely will never happen again in the current format. In the first three years of the College Football Playoff, a Group of 5 team has never ranked higher than No. 13 (Memphis in the 2015 initial rankings) by the CFB Playoff selection committee.

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"There is absolutely no ability for us (teams in the Group of 5) to be in that national title conversation," Frazier said. "That's just reality. Anyone that says we can: that's a flat-out lie." The Group of 5 consists of schools from the American, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt conferences along with independents BYU, Army and UMass. Frazier said he believes a Group of 5 playoff could be financially rewarding to those schools. NBC, CBS and ESPN have interest in televising a Group of 5 playoff, an industry source said. "As long as the financial agreement that currently exists with the CFB Playoff remains and we had the opportunity to package a Group of 5 championship, why wouldn't we want to do it?" a Group of 5 official said. "It would spread the exposure to all five conferences, rather than just the one conference champion that plays in a New Year's 6 bowl."

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merican Conference commissioner Mike Aresco has no interest in it either. "The answer is an emphatic no," Aresco said. "We compete for national championships like anyone else in FBS, including the Power 5, and have no interest in any kind of separate championship."

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