Meet College Football's 2014 Dark-Horse Group-of-5 Playoff Contenders
When you mention Cincinnati, Marshall or BYU, do you say "Final Four" in the same sentence?
And in this new era of the College Football Playoff system, can you find any of those schools on any watch list of contenders?
No, you can't.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
None of them are from a group-of-five power conference. BYU is barely in the latest AP rankings at No. 21, and Cincinnati and Marshall are in the dreaded "also receiving votes'' cast-off bin.
But with a collective 7-0 mark, the trio of playoff wannabes may have much better credentials than their rankings.
BYU, led by quarterback in Taysom Hill and a quality running back in Jamaal Williams, is 3-0 for the first time since 2008 following a 33-25 win over Houston on Saturday.
Marshall is also 3-0 and has outscored its opponents by a combined score of 134-48. Quarterback Rakeem Cato, who comes from the tough Liberty City section of Miami, has already thrown nine touchdown passes in three games.
Coach Doc Holliday brings an approach not unlike that of his bold namesake and has guided the Thundering Herd from the mediocrity of a 5-7 mark two seasons ago to a 10-4 record last season to the current role of favorite in the Conference USA race.
Cincinnati opened its season Friday with a 58-34 win over Toledo. Notre Dame transfer Gunner Kiel impressed at quarterback in his Bearcats debut by tying a school record with six touchdown passes.
Still, the task of making it into the Final Four will be difficult, if not impossible, for all three schools. They will have to turn in perfect or, at the most, one-loss seasons to fight their way through teams such as UCLA, Georgia, South Carolina, Stanford and USC.
Cincinnati and Marshall have decent chances of playing in one of the three non-contract bowls (Cotton, Peach, Fiesta), which have reserved one spot for the best team from the non-power-five conferences. BYU, though, has no such guarantee as an independent.
Breaking through the power-five barrier will be tough, but both Cincinnati and BYU have lived in the neighborhood before. BYU even has a national championship (1984) on its resume. Cincinnati finished third in the BCS rankings in 2009 while posting a 12-1 record, which got it to the Sugar Bowl but not the BCS title game. Marshall, for all of its history both tragic and uplifting (e.g. Randy Moss), is still writing its football legacy.
Recent history has not been kind to non-power-five schools. Dating back to 2004, the record books are littered with unfulfilled dreams.
Boise State went 13-0 in 2006 and finished eighth in the final BCS standings. In 2007, Hawaii went 12-1 and finished 10th. Boise went 12-1 in 2008 and finished ninth and went 14-0 in 2009 and finished sixth.
So, who among these three teams has the best chance of emerging?
BYU's independent status has put the Cougars in a state of limbo in some ways.
They have been a well-established program for more than 30 seasons, but if you are not named Notre Dame, life as an independent in football is a slippery slope.
The Cougars have flirted with joining the Big 12, but nothing has developed. The Big East and the American Athletic Conference have become regular suitors over the last few years. American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco has made it clear that the door to the AAC remains open to BYU if the Cougars change their mind.
"Our lines of communication remain open with them," Aresco told Bleacher Report, "but we respect their wishes to remain independent."
What happens this season could create a change of heart in Provo. Scheduling is part of the problem. A year ago, the Cougars had Texas, Wisconsin and Notre Dame on their schedule. They have already beaten the Longhorns and Houston, but there isn't a Top 25 team remaining on their schedule. It is possible the Cougars could finish 12-0 but end up ranked only No. 5 by the playoff committee and be left out of the major-bowl mix.
The schedule will also be an issue for Marshall, which has breezed to its three wins, but the victims have been Miami (Ohio), Rhode Island and Ohio. Their next five games are against Akron, Old Dominion, Middle Tennessee, FIU and Florida Atlantic.
See any game there that will draw the attention of the voters or the committee? There's no one after that, either. That looks like 12-0. But Marshall could win each game by 50 points or more and still not draw much attention, as there wouldn't be one quality win on the entire schedule.
And then there is Cincinnati, which will get its spotlight dance chance when it takes on Ohio State in Columbus on Sept. 27 and then travels to the University of Miami two weeks later. If the Bearcats can come out of their first five games 5-0, they have a chance of becoming contenders for more than the AAC title.
Cincinnati coach Tommy Tuberville is not dancing in his first big-time rodeo. Tuberville has an SEC pedigree, with stops at Mississippi and Auburn, as well as some time spent at Texas Tech in the Big 12.
He also knows about the inequities of the system. In 2004, he guided his Auburn team to a 13-0 record and a Sugar Bowl berth but was not part of the BCS Championship Game, because the computers came up with USC and Oklahoma, which started the season ranked No. 1 and No. 2 and never lost or dropped behind the unbeaten SEC champions.
The one-sided victory over Toledo was a nice start for the Bearcats, including the performance by Kiel, a sophomore transfer who originally committed to Notre Dame.
"He exceeded my expectations," Tuberville told reporters after the game. "I didn't think he'd play that well."
Kiel, who threw for 418 yards as well as six TDs, conceded that he had some butterflies but had a point to prove.
"For me, I think I silenced the critics," said Kiel. "People were bashing me."
If the Bearcats can beat Ohio State in Columbus, they will climb into the Top 25 and have the edge over Marshall, which is the only remaining unbeaten team in Conference USA. Northern Illinois is the only undefeated team left in the MAC and has no Top 25 opponents remaining, and neither the Sun Belt nor the Mountain West has any unbeaten teams remaining.
The opening is there, but it won't be easy to squeeze through.
Mark Blaudschun covers college football as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. He has more than three decades of experience covering sports at a variety of newspapers in New Jersey, The Dallas Morning News and The Boston Globe. Follow him on Twitter @blauds.
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