Stephen Tsai: Western Athletic Conference's breakup a lesson for Group of Five conferences
Aug. 17—Yep, those U-Haul trucks and architects are helping the Power Five schools rearrange the college football world.
If they had their way—oh, heck, they are having their way—they would form Avengers-like alliances and grab even more television money and more playoff berths.
For the Group of Five teams—such as the University of Hawaii, which is a football-only member of the Mountain West Conference—they are left to do nothing or do something.
The Group of Five teams can keep collecting massive participation checks for playing the Power Five schools once or twice a year. They also can settle for the one shared at-large berth when the playoffs expand to 12 teams. They also can watch as the Southeastern Conference cherry-picks the Big 12, and the Pac-12 explores mergers with teams two and three time zones away.
The one thing Group of Five conferences should resist is expanding their memberships to keep pace. It is a lesson learned from the Mountain West's predecessor.
In 1996, the Western Athletic Conference, of which UH was a member at the time, decided more was better. The 10-team WAC added six teams to morph into a 16-team, 3, 892-mile-wide conference. The WAC was divided into four-team quads. Two quads formed a division for two years, then the quads rotated for the following two years, and so forth. It failed. The distance was too great, the scheduling too confusing (UH and Rice would be divisional foes for two years, and then not again for another four years ), and the revenue bump non-existent. University of Utah officials questioned the WAC's expansion, and then three years later, helped spearhead the eight-team secession that led to the creation of the Mountain West.
If the Group of Five wishes to be proactive, it should consider forming its own classification with its own playoffs and championship game. As San Jose State's football coach in 2001, Fitz Hill floated the concept of a playoff system for the non-powerhouse conferences. At the time, Division I's first College Football Playoff was 13 years from being a reality.
Six years ago, former UH coach June Jones proposed the Group of Five should separate from the Power Five, establishing a spring season. That format would fill a football void and keep the Group of Five from competing directly against the Power Five and NFL for fans and TV revenue.
While Jones' plan never materialized, the intent had merit. The power schools need the Group of Five and Football Championship Subdivision schools to fill their schedules. If the power schools played only each other, the math dictates that some teams would be great, some would be awful, and many would be in the middle.
With the Power Five teams concerned more about their balance than the welfare of all programs, the Group of Five's leverage might be in keeping to itself.
