Mountain West sizes up Group of Five, College Football Playoff landscape

Nicole Auerbach | USA TODAY Sports

LAS VEGAS — Most college football coaches put blinders on as the season wears on, focusing on their next opponent. Then, they focus on the next one.

Not Nevada's Brian Polian.

"I pay attention to the schools nationally that we would look to as peers," he said at Mountain West Conference football media days. "The teams that kind of look like us. Who's doing well? Who's going to end up in that Group of Five (New Year's Six access bowl spot)? After we lost to Boise, I became a Boise fan.

"It's good for our league for Boise State to win the Fiesta Bowl. That's good for us collectively. That raises the national recognition for our league. It helps us in recruiting when someone in our league gets to a New Year's Six bowl."

Last season, Polian kept tabs on the best of the rest of the Group of Five conferences, including Marshall, Louisiana Tech, Central Florida and others. He was surprised that a one-loss Colorado State team didn't merit more conversation for a most coveted bowl slot, even though its loss came to the team that eventually got it — Boise State. The Broncos got in with two losses and went on to beat Arizona in the Fiesta Bowl.

Other coaches aren't wired like Polian. If pressed, they'll say they compare leagues by looking at non-conference results against the five resource-heavy leagues. Or they'll look to the Bowl Championship Series rankings — yes, they actually still exist — which are used to determine Group of Five conferences' relative strength and thus their Playoff revenue distributions at the end of the season. They don't watch clips or check scores as the season progresses.

There's no one correct way to measure teams from Group of Five leagues against one another in the College Football Playoff era; it's an inexact art, just like the rest of the tasks performed by the Playoff selection committee. The committee members determine which Group of Five team gets to play in one of their premier bowl games, and which conference reaps the financial benefit that comes along with it.

In Year 1, the honor went to Boise State, and the money went to the Mountain West. Though there was indeed anxiety — and some curiosity — as the season went along because of the uncertainty surrounding the selection, league commissioner Craig Thompson loved the experience. He didn't worry about not seeing Boise State's name in the weekly rankings in October; he knew the only ranking that mattered was the final one, released in December.

"I love this format, first and foremost, because our competition is four other conferences," Thompson told USA TODAY Sports. "The champion of this league (only) has to be selected ahead of the other four champions. I will take that over what we had for 16 years (the BCS) any day.

"The most appealing part outside of that … is that Boise State got in with two losses. I thought we would have that someday, but I didn't think it would happen in the first year. That's really encouraging. In the old days, the Utahs, the TCUs practically had to be unblemished, un-scored upon, absolutely undefeated to even have a chance to get in there."

Now, there certainly is more wiggle room, in terms of reaching a premier bowl that comes with a significant paycheck. Boise State's appearance netted the Mountain West an extra $6 million, bringing the total playoff payout for the league to $23.5 million. The rest of the Group of Five broke down as follows: $16.3 million to Conference USA; $15.2 million to the American; $14.1 million to the MAC; and $12 million to the Sun Belt.

Yet many Mountain West coaches, most notably San Diego State's Rocky Long, don't believe an undefeated Mountain West team can get into the Playoff unless it expands to six or eight spots. Long said it would be "impossible" to get in with just four.

The Mountain West does believe its reputation, its track record of strength compared to the other Group of Five leagues and the way it schedules are more than enough to guarantee one thing: The Mountain West champion will always be a strong candidate for the Group of Five slot in an access bowl. And that's all it can really ask for in the current Playoff system.

"I think our league is a lot better than we're given credit for," said Long, the San Diego State coach. "The only way you can prove it to anyone is to play some of those people and beat them. … For a coach's longevity, you would be smart if you went 4-0 (in non-conference play). But for the sake of the programs in this league — and all of the coaches in this league are the same — we want to compete at the highest level. We have to take a chance that we're going to lose our jobs in order to put those (Power Five) people on our schedule to play them.

"We're going to be the underdogs. It doesn't matter who you play. They have so many more resources than you have. They spend more on uniforms than we spend on our whole athletic budgets. It's ridiculous the inequality of the two types of leagues.

"But coaches are competitors. We're competitors. We recruit players who are competitive. We want to say, 'Show up and let's play.' "