Tulane’s back in contention for the Group of Five’s College Football Playoff bid this season following Friday night’s win at Memphis, a result that once again shakes up the title picture in the American. The Green Wave (7-2, 4-1) were able to thwart the Tigers’ comeback bid in the fourth quarter behind 332 yards passing and three touchdowns from Jake Retzlaff.
No Group of Five team was ranked in Tuesday’s initial College Football Playoff Rankings from the selection committee; however, Memphis (8-2, 4-2) was ahead of the rest of others in the picture and would’ve been placed at No. 12 in the bracket.
Entering Saturday’s games, one-loss teams within conference play inside the American include North Texas (8-1), Navy (7-1), USF (7-1), Tulane and East Carolina (5-3). Assuming tiebreaker scenarios in the American come into play in a few weeks, the conference first looks at where one of the tied teams was ranked in the latest playoff rankings. If that team doesn’t lose in the final weekend of regular-season conference play, it will be declared a championship title game participant.
Following USF’s win over UTSA on Thursday night, Alex Golesh and the Bulls essentially play a playoff elimination game next weekend at Navy. On the heels of three straight wins, North Texas is in great shape right now with an open date this weekend and clinches a berth in the American Championship by winning out against UAB, Rice and Temple.
East Carolina has a head-to-head loss to Tulane, which pushes the Pirates back in the mix. They host Charlotte on Saturday before closing out the season against Memphis, UTSA and FAU in conference play.
Bowl projections: Texas returns to College Football Playoff contention, Miami’s hopes fading down stretch
Brad Crawford
The most likely conference championship game pairing in the American following Tulane’s win over Memphis is North Texas against USF at Dec. 5 if both of those teams win out given where we expect the selection committee to rank both squads.
Tulane has a chance, too, after ending Memphis’ 11-game home winning streak.
“I’m so proud of our guys for their resiliency,” said Tulane coach Jon Sumrall. “It was so cool to see how our guys responded (after last week’s loss at Texas-San Antonio). Bad things are going to happen sometimes. You just have to keep showing up.”
Theoretically, we could see a three-team tie in first place with North Texas, USF and Tulane assuming East Carolina fails to win out and USF beats Navy on Nov. 15.
If that happens, North Texas would be guaranteed one of the title game spots since the Mean Green beat the Bulls head-to-head and the other would be determined by the selection committee’s penultimate poll on Dec. 2 based on where USF and Tulane is ranked.
While there was no data provided on one-loss James Madison and San Diego State from the selection committee earlier this week, those are potential conference champions from the Sun Belt and Mountain West who could be ranked higher than the winner in the American a few weeks from now.
JMU (7-1, 5-0) has won six straight entering Saturday’s bout with Marshall, and its only loss this season came against Louisville, who the selection committee slotted as the ACC’s second-best team behind Virginia in its first rankings.
The Aztecs (7-1, 4-0) are flying under the radar in the Mountain West with an unblemished conference mark, their lone setback happening back on Sept. 6 at Washington State. San Diego State takes on Hawaii in Week 11, before playing Boise State and New Mexico down the stretch, three six-win teams that will beef up this team’s resume if they’re able to win out.
There’s no guarantee the winner of the American gets the Group of Five’s playoff bid given the hot streaks for JMU and San Diego State. Following Saturday’s games, the selection committee should provide considerably more transparency this week on who they believe is the Group of Five’s frontrunner with a few games to play.
