Group of 6 schools struggling to stay competitive as gap with Power 4 widens: 'It's only going to get harder'
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In the aftermath of a close call against Oklahoma last month, New Mexico coach Jason Eck cracked a joke that could probably be considered gallows humor for every coach in the Group of Six.
"Something I'm happy about is we got nine starters on defense who are seniors," Eck said. "So all these SEC coaches will be seeing how good our defense is and they'll look up all those guys they'd like to have play for them and they're going to see they're seniors. They have no eligibility left to transfer to the SEC next year."
Eck's assessment of the current environment in college football was hilariously on the nose. At a place like New Mexico, which has dominated its competition this year outside of that 14-6 loss to the Sooners, the reward for success is power conference programs poring over its film and looking for players they might be able to poach in the transfer portal.
Maybe that's fair. In a world where most people are striving for more money and better career opportunities — including coaches like Eck, whose name will be high on the list for openings when the coaching carousel begins — there's something to be said for college football players having that right as well.
But it's also noticeable how so much roster churn has widened the talent gap between the 68 schools playing power conference football and everyone else, to the point where Group of Six programs sometimes look more like a feeder system than a competitive entity.
In 76 games played this season between the Power Four and the Group of Six, teams from the latter have won just three — a low point in the modern history of college football. But the disparity is even more jarring when you dig into the numbers. Of the 73 wins by power conference teams, only 21 were decided by 14 points or fewer while 27 of those games had a margin of five touchdowns or more. In 10 of those games, the Group of Six team didn't manage to score a single point.
Ever since NIL, revenue sharing and unlimited transfers came to college sports, we have seen bits and pieces of evidence suggesting that Cinderella might be dying in the big-money sports of football and men's basketball. On the heels of a March Madness tournament with no mid-majors in the Sweet 16 and a fairly large sample size on the gridiron this fall, it's getting harder to deny the obvious.
"Let's face reality here," a Group of Six conference source told Yahoo Sports. "The constant cycle of having to reload is brutal. There's not a limitless amount of talent in the system."
Is this the new reality for G6 teams?
Though administrators in those leagues are reluctant to discuss this subject publicly, there's broad acknowledgement that none of this is good for their enterprise.
Despite the financial disparities that have existed for many years, the promise of a MAC program picking off someone in the Big Ten, Memphis upsetting a regional SEC rival or Boise State beating a national power was as much of a tradition as tailgating on Saturday and complaining about the AP poll on Sunday. A handful of programs, like Fresno State, Appalachian State and Georgia Southern, evoked a specific type of fear in power conference fan bases when they showed up on the schedule.
And there's certainly a chance this season is an anomaly. Just a year ago, a dozen power conference teams took a loss to a non-power conference team before the end of September. Two years ago, Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois and made it to the national championship game.
But when the fact pattern looks like it does this season, even the schools that have enjoyed some success against the power conference teams know there's a potential downside: They're going to get raided.
"The power conference schools are paying backups what we're paying starters," said UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford, who watched his team beat Rutgers in Week 1. "That's a reality. Any time you've got guys that are all-league or putting stuff on tape consistently week in and week out, anyone who's saying that isn't in the back of their mind isn't being truthful."
UMass, which sits at 4-1, is an interesting case study for why that's not necessarily a bad thing. After years of struggling as an FBS independent, which often meant signing up to be power conference cannon fodder so that they could make their budget, Bamford can be choosier about scheduling power conference games as a member of the MAC.
Bamford said that, according to the consultants he uses, the win over Rutgers was worth $40 million in publicity for the school. Even winning the 2021 national championship in men's hockey didn't have that much reach. In a way, it's proof of concept for why so many Group of Six schools keep investing in the football dream, even as they drift further away financially and competitively from the power leagues.
If you can catch that lightning in a bottle one time, it's a supercharger for an entire university.
But if you do it too much, that's a problem as well.
Is P4 avoiding the top G6 teams?
A partial explanation for why there have been fewer Group of Six wins this year is the lack of opportunities for their best teams. With all the power leagues going to nine conference games and potentially being required to play 10 power conference opponents if the playoff expands, why risk another loss?
Boise State, which used to play a lot of big TV games early in the season, went to Oregon last month, has a home-and-home series scheduled with Cincinnati in 2028 and 2029, will play at Washington in 2029 and has a home-and-home with Houston in 2030 and 2031. Arkansas punted a game with Memphis this year to 2030, leaving both the Tigers and USF (the two biggest spenders in the American) without a power conference opponent this season.
UNLV, which only recently became one of the best Mountain West programs, won a home game against Cal last weekend that was scheduled back in 2017 when it sounded like fun to play a road game in Las Vegas. And next year, Arizona State will play at UNLV thanks to another deal signed more than a decade ago. It's no longer going to be that easy now that the Rebels are a regular Group of Six contender.
"The reality is, there are less [power conference teams] scheduling against the G6 in general, and the ones that are, I don't think have the guts to schedule against the best G6 teams," a conference official told Yahoo Sports. "If you look at the matchups, you're not seeing them schedule the better G6 teams nearly as much as they did in the past."
There are no easy fixes for the top Group of Six schools to ensure their continued relevance, but there's incentive on all sides to maintain some version of the status quo where smaller schools make money off big non-conference games and big schools have a proving ground from which they can hire coaches (and now recruit players).
"I think if I learned anything through my time at South Florida, there's no substitute for going and doing it and screwing things up and making it right when there isn't maybe as many eyes on you to where you can learn and gain experience," said Auburn coach Alex Golesh, who parlayed a 9-3 season in the American into an SEC job. "That's invaluable for any of us."
In hopes of patching over some of the holes on Auburn's roster, Golesh brought 13 players with him — 11 on offense, including quarterback Byrum Brown. Though the on-field results have been mixed so far (Auburn is 3-2), these ready-made player/coach packages coming from the Group of Six are going to be the norm as long as the NCAA is unable to enforce any transfer regulations.
"We're kind of leaning into that a little bit like, hey, we're the conference that develops talent," one American Conference athletic director told Yahoo Sports. "Whether that's coaches or athletes or ADs, people want our talent, we develop it and it shows. I think the power conferences need us in kind of a weird way, like we're almost a farm system for them."
Though that's been the case for a few years now, it may finally be starting to show in the on-field results. Those that can get a win over a power conference team better learn to savor it.
"It's only going to get harder," Bamford said, "because the talent disparity is so great."
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