Its a bad situation for the G5 if in the very first year they have to go back to the Committee as say, um, could you tell us which G5 team is best because you didn't rank any of them.

I have to believe Marshall can't be that far from making an appearance in their Top 25.

Because of their obnoxious fans that trolled this site, I have a bad taste for all Temple sports-I can't stand them! Made for a great rivalry though. Anyway I was rooting for ECU. Plus I figured, if ECU won out this year, it made our showing against them in the Beef Bowl a little more respectable. And sorry OCF; I hate Marshall too-I'd rather seem them play in a crappy bowl. Their fans are "Ohio State" level when it comes to obnoxiousness.

UCF didn't finish in the Top 10 last year after beating Top 10 Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl and that was with an AQ bid. They wont allow mid majors to coast into the Top 10 anymore. Its not a big problem in basketball where the NCAA tournament can do the talking for you but football is all about the polls.

It isn't as much what they want or don't want as far as rankings go. I don't think there is a big conspiracy there. The out of conference results have been slipping and this year they G5s collective results fell off of a cliff. The days of not being totally shocked when a 3rd place mid-major squad has a good day and knocks off a ranked opponent are gone. The ranking rightly should reflect that.

As to if there is a conspiracy behind what caused those results is a bit more debatable. In the end it comes down to the money structure. Revenue for mid-majors has increased at a good pace over 20 years but it isn't coming close to keeping pace with the growth of high-major revenue. It seems like the high-major schools don't want to leave. It seems like they don't like D1 expanding. It seems to be that their preference is almost to crush the low-majors and keep conferences like the MWC, AAC, CUSA, MAC, SunBelt, A-10, MVC, WCC, and Horizon around in a completely noncompetitive level to beat up on with a few payout games to have extra home games.

Cherry Power! ;-)

And our victim, Idaho, had 8 turnovers today. Turnovers kill.

I think the smart money is on Marshall if they win out. Look at the other polls. AP has Marshall at 21 and CSU at 23. ESPN has them at 25 and CSU unranked. USA Today has Marshall at 21 and CSU at 25. ECU is now unranked in all these polls. If Marshall stumbles, then all bets are off and either ECU or CSU could end up with the prize, which I don't think is necessarily Atlanta at this point. I think which bowl will be the Access Bowl has not been determined yet and depends on the geographically location of the playoff teams. At least that's what one of our knowledgeable BA colleagues said, and who am I to doubt such a learned scholar of football.

The committee apparently makes its decision based on different criteria from the other polls, although it's not really clear what the voters in any poll -- including the committee's -- look at. Unfortunately, the scheduling has really hurt T'erd. At this point, their schedule has two G5 teams with winning records, two at .500, seven with losing records and a 1AA team that's 0-10. Both Colo St and EMU have played and beaten "P"5 teams on the road and come from conferences with better reputations. Colo St has already beaten three bowl eligible teams, and has at least one more on the schedule, maybe two if they get in the conf championship. And they're ranked in the other two polls. If both teams win out, it'll probably be a coin flip.