Poor Charlie Brown

Poor Charlie Brown...

Every time he tries to kick the football, Lucy pulls it away.  She keeps telling him that if he'll just act thus way, think that way, or believe this or that, he'll be able to kick the ball, but she always pulls it away.  Charlie never gets to play, not really.

This must be how the Group of 5, and many other teams feel, with the latest news of SEC expansion.  Take TCU, for example.  From 1923-1995, they were part of the Southwest Conference, with Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas (left in '92 to join the SEC), SMU, Houston, Baylor, and Rice.  When the Big 12 formed, the Horned Frogs, along with SMU, Houston, and Rice were cast off, and so TCU joined the WAC where they stayed for 5 years (1996-2000).  They then joined CUSA for 4 years (2001-2004), followed by the Mountain West Conference for 7 years (2005-2011).

They achieved enough success to be invited into the Big 12 in 2012, finally reaching Power 5 status, what every G5 team dreams of, and they even won the conference in 2014 (co-champs), but weren't invited into the CFP despite their 12-1 record and their only loss being by 3 to another 12-1 team, co-champ Baylor.  Instead, they were passed over by eventual champion Ohio State.  And now, with Oklahoma and Texas moving to the SEC, TCU may be relegated back to G5 status once again.

Group of 5 teams keep being told that their schedules aren't difficult enough, but when the good ones try to schedule P5 teams, many don't want to play them, because then those P5 teams get criticized for playing "easy" teams.  For example, UCF was criticized for their easy schedules when they went undefeated for 2 years in a row (2017 and 2018), but the reality is they must play a conference schedule, and they can't really choose their conference.  They're not Texas.  They can't just go to the SEC and say, "Hey, we want to join," and have the SEC welcome them with open arms.  So they play the conference games they must, and then schedule as many P5 games as they can, but many teams won't play them unless they can get a 2-for-1 (2 home games for one played at UCF, which the Knights finally agreed to with Florida just recently). And then when they do get to play a P5 team, it's when they are down (4-8 Maryland in 2017), or gets canceled due to weather (UNC in 2018), or the other team wasn't motivated to play (2017 Peach Bowl win over #7 Auburn). And P5 teams that do play G5 teams are criticized for not playing other P5 teams.  It's Lucy and the football again: tell G5 teams to play more P5 teams to help their schedule difficulty, but tell P5 teams to stop playing G5 teams, to help their strength of schedule.

Though it hasn't been approved, it seems a foregone conclusion that the CFP will be expanding to 12 teams.  The expansion has been proposed to include the top 6 conference champions and 6 at-large teams.  This would seem to give teams like TCU and UCF access to the playoff by winning their conference or by having a super regular season, but not winning the conference (TCU in 2014, for example).  But with the breakup of the Big 12 now appearing imminent, the sentiment among many seems to be to put the brakes on the CFP expansion, which many felt could happen as early as 2023.  This will actually delay access for these teams into the CFP if the expansion is put off until 2026, which is when the current 4-team playoff structure expires.

The expansion of the SEC creates another problem for G5 teams.  With so much power concentrated in one conference, it's possible that 8-4 or 9-3 SEC teams will make the new expanded playoff ahead of 10-2 or 11-1 teams from other conferences, simply on strength of schedule.  But most concerning of all is that this expansion will set off a chain of events that will lead to the ACC, Big Ten, and PAC12 also expanding into 16-team super conferences, and then breaking off into their own organization, quite possibly leaving the TCU's and UCF's and all the other G5 teams behind once again.  Though a few Big 12 remains and some G5 teams may be pulled into these 16 or 20-team super conferences, most will be left behind in a pseudo 1-AA division, perhaps forced back into FCS.  And mostly because many of those schools didn't join one of the P5 conferences in 1915, or 1932, or 1896, or 1953, because many didn't even exist at that time, or didn't have football programs then.

And Lucy keeps pulling that football away...