Your 2019 G5/FCS 16 Team Playoff Bracket

[Herder]

Based on today’s Sagarin Ratings, here’s your bracket:

Top Half of Bracket:
1 Memphis (17)
16 Utah State (71)

8 SMU (34)
9 NDSU (37)

5 Navy (29)
12 FAU (54)

4 App St (28)
13 Tulane (61)

Bottom Half of Bracket:
2 Boise St (25)
15 Temple (67)

7 Cincinnati (32)
10 Louisiana (44)

6 Air Force (31)
11 James Madison (53)

3 UCF (27)
14 SDSU-CA (63)

Outside the Bracket:
Wyo (72)
Houston (73)
Hawaii (76)
Tulsa (78)
W KY (79)
W MI (80)
Buffalo (81)
GA So (83)
Ohio (84)
Marshall (85)
Montana (86)
Fresno (88)
LA Tech (89)
MT State (90)

Thoughts? Great year for High Quality G5 football really. I remember doing this a few years ago and 4 FCS teams made the 16.

[Professor]

The only team i see having a chance is NDSU

[Herder]

The only team i see having a chance is NDSU

I think there’d be some national interest in that bracket. More G5 / FCS games and interaction would be great for college FB. Obviously the G5 strongly covets their relationship with the P5, but that would be a great playoff. There are so few bowl games with any meaning which help the G5 you’d think they be revolting against the status quo. Look what App State gets for 12-1? Pathetic.

[NY Crusader 2010]

The Holy Grail for the G5 is to secure the ONE New Year's Bowl slot allocated to the champion of one of the 5 lower conferences. At this level, it has already been made clear that an undefeated season will never be enough to vault one into the four-team national championship playoff, where at minimum one conference champ from the power conferences will be already left out. So the best that can be hoped for if you are Boise, App State, Georgia Southern, Northern Illinois or UCF is to get the chance at winning a David-Goliath match-up against a fringe Top 10 Power 5 team. And based on the math, if you win your conference 5 times, odds are you get this opportunity once (5 G5 champs, 1 slot). Otherwise, you end up in a no-name bowl game against another one of your "I-AA/FCS move-up" brethren from the G5. Neither of you wants to be paired with the other because your teams and fan-bases are both foaming at the mouth wishing for a chance to play a power school.

Not to mention, I'm sure many wish there was more of a concrete reasoning for some of the bowl match-ups, like Conference Champ A plays Conference Champ B. But it somehow never works like that. App State won the Sun Belt. FAU won C-USA but the two don't get paired up in a battle of conference winners. Instead they each face runners-up from other G5 leagues. Why?

My thoughts on the MAC -- the league belongs in FCS. Minus the one year that NIU had a soft 12-0 team that got curb-stomped in the Orange Bowl, none of the winners of the MAC Championship in recent memory have played in an even somewhat notable bowl game. Remember when Marshall moved up from I-AA and turned the MAC into it's personal play-pen for half a decade? What was their league record 40-2? Miami (Ohio) is heading to Mobile, AL this year on January 6th to play the Sun Belt runner-up Louisiana-Lafayette, who should KILL them. There is nothing about the MAC that belongs in FBS. Too many schools in Ohio and Michigan both of whom have solid football backbones but nowhere near the talent you find down south. Attendances barely in the five-figure range (probably not helped by Tuesday night MACTION where they trade gate receipts for ESPN $). And nowhere near the persistent quality of teams you find in the other G5 conferences across the board. FCS could use a Midwest-based league IMO, probably our biggest geographical void in addition to the state of Florida. MAC would essentially become "Big Sky East". If they moved down, Buffalo probably leaves and makes a hard push to join the AAC where they would be a solid fit IMO. And then Youngstown can simply slide in.

[MSUBobcat]

The Holy Grail for the G5 is to secure the ONE New Year's Bowl slot allocated to the champion of one of the 5 lower conferences. At this level, it has already been made clear that an undefeated season will never be enough to vault one into the four-team national championship playoff, where at minimum one conference champ from the power conferences will be already left out. So the best that can be hoped for if you are Boise, App State, Georgia Southern, Northern Illinois or UCF is to get the chance at winning a David-Goliath match-up against a fringe Top 10 Power 5 team. And based on the math, if you win your conference 5 times, odds are you get this opportunity once (5 G5 champs, 1 slot). Otherwise, you end up in a no-name bowl game against another one of your "I-AA/FCS move-up" brethren from the G5. Neither of you wants to be paired with the other because your teams and fan-bases are both foaming at the mouth wishing for a chance to play a power school.

Not to mention, I'm sure many wish there was more of a concrete reasoning for some of the bowl match-ups, like Conference Champ A plays Conference Champ B. But it somehow never works like that. App State won the Sun Belt. FAU won C-USA but the two don't get paired up in a battle of conference winners. Instead they each face runners-up from other G5 leagues. Why?

My thoughts on the MAC -- the league belongs in FCS. Minus the one year that NIU had a soft 12-0 team that got curb-stomped in the Orange Bowl, none of the winners of the MAC Championship in recent memory have played in an even somewhat notable bowl game. Remember when Marshall moved up from I-AA and turned the MAC into it's personal play-pen for half a decade? What was their league record 40-2? Miami (Ohio) is heading to Mobile, AL this year on January 6th to play the Sun Belt runner-up Louisiana-Lafayette, who should KILL them. There is nothing about the MAC that belongs in FBS. Too many schools in Ohio and Michigan both of whom have solid football backbones but nowhere near the talent you find down south. Attendances barely in the five-figure range (probably not helped by Tuesday night MACTION where they trade gate receipts for ESPN $). And nowhere near the persistent quality of teams you find in the other G5 conferences across the board. FCS could use a Midwest-based league IMO, probably our biggest geographical void in addition to the state of Florida. MAC would essentially become "Big Sky East". If they moved down, Buffalo probably leaves and makes a hard push to join the AAC where they would be a solid fit IMO. And then Youngstown can simply slide in.

Well said.

[NY Crusader 2010]

Anyway, I did this last year too as I am definitely someone who would love to see this happen. Below is my 24-team FBS playoff bracket:

FAU @ Florida => 8) Wisconsin
Miami (Ohio) @ Penn State => 7) Baylor
Navy** @ Auburn => 6) Oregon
Cincinnati @ Utah => 5) Georgia
Appalachian State @ Alabama => 4) Oklahoma
Boise State @ Michigan => 3) Clemson
Minnesota @ Notre Dame => 2) Ohio State
Memphis @ Iowa => 1) LSU

** Note I build this bracket using the CFP rankings. At moment Navy is one spot behind USC. Assuming they beat Army, I am making the assumption 10-2 Navy would jump 8-4 USC for the last at-large spot in the bracket. This bracket was also made to accommodate no rematches from regular season in Rounds of 24 and 16. I think this would be so much more exciting than the current bowl system.

I also didn't put the seed numbers next to them but I more or less seeded out teams 9-24 based on CFP rankings with a couple of switch ups to keep the PSU-Miami & UF-FAU games local and to have Navy go to Auburn instead of Utah to avoid a Utah-Oregon potential rematch.