The 2024 season brings unprecedented opportunity for the Group of Five. The new 12-team College Football Playoff format means that a team outside of the Power Four ranks will be guaranteed one of the five conference champion auto-bids in the CFP for the first time in history.
While that’s still not a ton of representation for a level that boasts five conferences, it’s much better than the previous process. Throughout a decade of the four-team CFP, only one Group of Five school — Cincinnati in 2021 — has made the cut. Great teams, like UCF in 2017 and even Cincinnati in 2020, were left with a consolation New Year’s Six invite to show for their efforts.
The race for that one spot promises to be exciting. There are, theoretically, 66 teams in play as the 2024 season kicks off.
Even then, some teams appear ahead of the pack in the waning preseason. Liberty, fresh off a 13-1 season under coach Jamey Chadwell, has generated a ton of buzz. Boise State is looking to impress in its first year under rookie coach Spencer Danielson.
Even Memphis, which burst onto the national stage under the likes of Justin Fuente and Mike Norvell, has steadily inched back into the spotlight with Ryan Silverfield leading the way. With so many moving parts, there’s always one team that can come out of nowhere and take the Group of Five by storm.
Below our CBS Sports experts selected their top five Group of Five teams in the 2024 season and predicted which team will make history and earn a historic bid into the expanded College Football Playoff.
Top five Group of Five teams
Group of Five CFP bid
Boise State: Even when things go wrong, the Broncos still manage to find themselves in the Mountain West title hunt. Such was the case last season when they parted with coach Andy Avalaos in November and proceeded to win the league championship. While Maddux Madsen’s emergence as the starting quarterback over ballyhooed USC transfer Malachi Nelson marks a surprising twist heading into the season, the Broncos still look like the team to beat in the Group of Five. Running back Ashton Jeanty is an all-purpose star, and the defense is loaded with veteran production. While first-year coach Spencer Danielson is a 35-year-old rookie, the return of 65-year-old college and NFL veteran Dirk Koetter as offensive coordinator gives the Broncos a veteran presence to help steer the ship into the CFP’s 12-team harbor. — Cobb (Dodd, Patterson, Jeyarajah, Palm)
Liberty: If you were to ask me who the best Group of Five team in the country is, Liberty would be in consideration, but it wouldn’t be the pick. So why am I picking the Flames to be the Group of Five’s representative in the 12-team playoff? It’s simple: The Flames might not be the best Group of Five team in the country, but they’re far and away the best team in their league. Barring injury, the Flames will be favored in every game they play during the regular season and have a good chance of going 12-0. It was a winning formula that earned them a Fiesta Bowl appearance last season, and it’ll be a winning formula again in 2024. — Fornelli (Johnson, Backus)
