Playoff door slammed shut on Boise State, other Group of Five schools

On Sept. 21, the Pitt Panthers ran a trick play that felt as if it drew a fitting close to the era of the aspirant underdog in college football. That little bit of razzle-dazzle, known as the “Pitt special,” could trace its roots to Boise State’s embrace of goal-line deception during an epic Fiesta Bowl upset of Oklahoma in 2007. In this case, it delivered the Panthers a 35-34 win over UCF and shattered the Knights’ 27-game non-bowl winning streak, along with any slim hope UCF had of finally qualifying for the College Football Playoff. 

But it felt, too, as if the very idea of a true underdog Group of Five team ever qualifying for the Playoff in its current format — ahead of a school from a Power Five conference — had been delivered a stylish death blow in the process. 

Less than a month later, here we are again: Boise State is 6-0 heading into this week’s game at BYU, with a road victory over Florida State on its resume. If the Broncos win this weekend, they could sweep the remainder of their Mountain West schedule and wind up undefeated. And yet six years into the Playoff era, it feels as if the Boise/UCF moment has passed. It seems it doesn’t matter what Boise State does in the Playoff era, just as it didn’t matter what the Broncos did in the BCS era when they beat Oklahoma to complete an undefeated season — just as it didn’t matter when UCF beat Auburn in the Peach Bowl to go undefeated in 2017. 

It has become clear that teams like Boise and UCF are never going to play for a national title (at least until or unless the Playoff expands). I’m not the only one who believes the aspirations of schools like Boise are now limited. This week Boise State’s athletic director, Curt Apsey, confessed to ESPN, “I’m not sure if we factor into the playoff, to be honest with you.”  

After years of schools like UCF advocating for a Playoff berth and awarding themselves national championship rings, Apsey’s comments were surprisingly candid. He admitted that despite a win at Florida State, Boise probably shouldn’t get into the Playoff ahead of, say, a two-loss Alabama team. He admitted that the very idea of a school like Boise harboring Playoff aspirations was the equivalent of living in an alternative reality.

And here’s the existential question college football will have to reckon with as it considers further Playoff expansion: Does it matter that those Group of Five schools do, in fact, exist in an alternative reality? Is there a place for the underdog in an expanded College Football Playoff, or is there simply no place for smaller schools in the national championship discussion? 

I get that it may not seem like an overly consequential issue, particularly to fans of Power Five schools. The odds of Boise State, if it did reach the Playoff, defeating a school like Clemson or Alabama are slim. But those slim odds are also what’s propelled the NCAA basketball tournament to go from a largely ignored event to one of the biggest moneymakers in college sports. 

College football has essentially eliminated the underdog from its upper echelon. Maybe for a sport that’s always been top-heavy and driven by tradition-rich programs, it doesn’t matter much. But there’s also an argument to be made that the aspirant underdog is an essential part of college sports; that, as Boise coach Bryan Harsin says, “If you're undefeated, you should have an opportunity to play for a national championship. Period.” 

That is not going to happen for Boise, no matter if it wins this weekend and beyond. Now that the door has essentially shut — at least until the Playoff considers expansion — it feels as if something’s been lost. The era has passed. A world in which Group of Five schools and Power Five schools exist in alternative realities may be what the masses demand, but it’s not nearly as much fun.