Mountain West commissioner unsure of ‘intriguing’ Group of Five football playoff idea
Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez isn’t ready to commit to the idea of a separate college football playoff for Group of Five teams.
Nevarez told The Associated Press last week that she has seen a presentation on the playoff that has been circulating among G5 administrators, but she hasn’t been personally pitched on the idea. She called the idea “certainly intriguing,” but she said it has two main hurdles to clear before becoming a reality.
The first obstacle is ensuring that it doesn’t disrupt the access G5 conferences have to the current College Football Playoff. It’s expanding to 12 teams this year, ensuring spots for the five highest-ranked conference champions and seven at-large teams. It could expand to 14 teams as early as 2026, according to a deal struck earlier this year that runs through 2031.
It’s the first time teams from the Mountain West, American, Sun Belt and C-USA conferences have a legitimate path to a national championship. That access must be protected at all costs, Nevarez said.
“The piece that’s really most important to us is that access piece. The five and seven,” Nevarez told the AP. “Anything would have to be significant enough to even think about stepping away from the CFP.”
Nevarez said the second hurdle to be cleared is ensuring there’s a substantial financial benefit.
She said G5 administrators were not happy about the revenue distribution agreement in the new CFP deal. While the overall value of the playoff will more than double, to about $1.3 billion, G5 teams are left making about $1.8 million, which is close to what they’re making now. Meanwhile, teams in the Power 4 conferences — SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12 — will receive substantially more.
“We were all disappointed in the financial outcome of the CFP, no doubt,” she told the AP. “But that aside, we’re very excited collectively as a league that the enterprise stayed together, that we have the access.”
A G5 playoff would be funded by private equity, according to an idea pitched by former Tennessee and Louisiana Tech head coach Derek Dooley. It would also require more than 60 G5 teams to realign into eight divisions determined by geography, and the renegotiation of the TV contracts that those conferences have in place.
The exact model a separate playoff wold adopt is still being debated. One has the G5 winner advancing to the CFP, but that would create a daunting scheduling challenge. The other model excludes the G5’s representative in the CFP, making it similar to college basketball’s NIT.
