The Mid-Major Illusion: Why the Group of 6 Needs More Than Scraps

Let's be clear: the gap between the Power 4 and the mid-majors isn't just widening; it's becoming a canyon. We are witnessing a systemic erasure of the Group of 6, where the prestige of the 'major' conference is bought and paid for by the capture of former mid-major powers like Utah and TCU. When you realize that no mid-major-equivalent team has touched a national championship since BYU in 1984, the reality sets in. We aren't playing on a level field; we're playing in a backyard where the Power 4 own the lawn.

**OPINION:** If we continue on this trajectory, the expanded College Football Playoff (CFP) is nothing more than a cosmetic fix. Adding teams to a bracket doesn't matter if the path to get there is designed to keep the Group of 6 in the basement. Unless we fundamentally change how these teams qualify, we are simply pretending the mid-majors still matter while they are fed the leftovers of the college football feast.

There is, however, a blueprint for survival. As Sports Illustrated first reported, there is a growing school of thought suggesting the Group of 6—comprising the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12, and Sun Belt—could secede from the Power 4 to stage their own playoff and crown their own champion. According to a report from On3's Brett McMurphy, coaches are becoming more open to this possibility, provided that access to the CFP remains guaranteed.

Sports Illustrated proposes a 'modest proposal' to integrate this: a Group of 6 playoff baked directly into the regular season. Under this model, once teams complete 10 games, the CFP committee would rank the top four Group of 6 teams. These four would then compete in a single-elimination tournament, with the winner receiving the Group of 6's presumptive automatic bid to the 24-team CFP. Crucially, this wouldn't stop other Group of 6 teams from making the field based on merit; it would simply give the tournament winner a definitive path and a high-quality win to bolster their resume.

We already have a proof of concept. As Sports Illustrated notes, the Pac-12 is implementing a similar strategy this season. Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould told the AP's John Marshall in August that the conference is using a 'flex schedule' for the final week before its Dec. 4 championship game. By unilaterally determining matchups to maximize CFP positioning and strength of schedule, Gould argues the move is more advantageous for the teams and better for television partners.

If the Group of 6 can extrapolate the Pac-12 model—using flex matchups for teams with comparable records and a high-stakes tournament for the elite—they might actually survive the reported 2027 shift toward a 24-team CFP. Without such a mechanism, the mid-majors aren't just underdogs; they're an afterthought in a sport that is rapidly forgetting they exist.