College football crossed the offseason Rubicon last weekend as we’re now closer to kickoff in Week Zero than we are removed from the national title game. As we hit the downslope barrelling toward the upcoming 2025 season—and with most of the transfer portal activity quieted down—it’s time to check in with the major conferences to see just how they’re shaping up coming out of the spring.
You can find the ACC edition here, the Big 12 here, the Big Ten here and the SEC here. Next up? The Group of 5 and FBS independents.
Top storyline: Can Notre Dame make another CFP push?
While the ending wasn’t what Irish fans wanted—and the upset to the Northern Illinois Huskies in South Bend won’t soon be forgotten—last season was still a charmed one for the Irish. Marcus Freeman has proven himself to be one of the more compelling head coaches in the game right now. He’ll bring back a team that lost a lot of talent but still has plenty on hand to make another potential College Football Playoff run.
Much of this playoff encore will come down to the play at quarterback, where redshirt freshman CJ Carr appears to be the designated successor to Riley Leonard. He’ll have some quality weapons on the outside at wideout and will benefit greatly from one of the nation’s best offensive lines and a first-round draft prospect running back in Jeremiyah Love. How quickly the defense can retool might determine the ultimate ceiling for this squad, especially given the difficult slate that features the Miami Hurricanes, Texas A&M Aggies, Boise State Broncos and a road trip into the SEC at the Arkansas Razorbacks all before mid-October rolls around.
Under-the-radar storyline: Who is the favorite for the Group of 5 bid?
While it felt like Boise State was a cut above the rest of the Group of 5 in the race to land a playoff bid coming into last season, this year it’s a bit muddled as to who really is in contention given the amount of roster turnover across so many teams. Obviously losing a player like Ashton Jeanty is going to hurt, but the Broncos can probably still be the nominal favorite to make it back to the CFP given the return of QB Maddux Madsen and a pretty deep roster that is more than capable of emerging out of the Mountain West. The AAC and Sun Belt won’t lack potential threats either. Keep an eye out for the Toledo Rockets if they could somehow upset the Kentucky Wildcats in the opener.
Conference tiers
The American
Favorites: Memphis Tigers, South Florida Bulls, Tulane Green Wave
Dark horses: Army Black Knights, Navy Midshipmen
Aiming high: East Carolina Pirates, North Texas Mean Green, UTSA Roadrunners
Battling for a bowl: Florida Atlantic Owls, UAB Blazers
Building for next year: Charlotte 49ers, Rice Owls, Temple Owls, Tulsa Golden Hurricane
The AAC figures to be a fun league to follow in 2025 given the amount of parity at the top and number of other programs rebuilding in unique ways. There was a massive exodus of talent via the transfer portal, but many programs smartly capitalized on those transferring down to fill spots on the roster to go along with retaining a handful of key players. It’s pretty wide open in terms of number of contenders, though Memphis might get the slight edge given how consistent Ryan Silverfield’s program has become. Still, you could make a decent case for as many as eight teams to emerge out of the conference this season.
Conference USA
Favorite: Liberty Flames
Dark horse: Western Kentucky Hilltoppers
Aiming high: Jacksonville State Gamecocks
Battling for a bowl: Florida International Panthers, Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders, Sam Houston State Bearkats, UTEP Miners
Building for next year: Delaware Blue Hens, Kennesaw State Owls, Missouri State Bears, New Mexico State Aggies
It’s a big year for CUSA with two new teams from the FCS ranks in Missouri State and Delaware. Both squads return much of their rosters from last season as part of the transition up, but there’s still a bit of the unknown with each as they make the jump up to tougher competition on a regular basis—to say nothing about dealing with CUSA’s midweek games for the first time. There are also a slew of new coaches who should add a dash more randomness to results, so good luck trying to truly sort out the standings in this conference.
MAC
Favorite: Toledo Rockets
Dark horse: Buffalo Bulls
Aiming high: Central Michigan Chippewas, Eastern Michigan Eagles, Miami (Ohio) RedHawks, Northern Illinois Huskies, Ohio Bobcats, Western Michigan Broncos
Building for next year: Kent State Golden Flashes, Massachusetts Minutemen
The beloved midweek fixture is going through quite a bit of transition in 2025 with five new head coaches joining the MAC, a new school arriving (or rather returning?) in UMass and the pending departure of Northern Illinois in football. The transfer portal wasn’t kind to many of the rosters around the league, but that should make for plenty of winter coin flips on the field beyond Toledo, which could be a sneaky entrant into the Group of 5 conversation if it actually lives up to the billing this season.
Mountain West
Favorite: Boise State Broncos
Dark horses: San Jose State Spartans
Aiming high: Air Force Falcons, Colorado State Rams, Fresno State Bulldogs, UNLV Rebels, Utah State Aggies
Battling for a bowl: Hawai’i Rainbow Warriors, Nevada Wolf Pack, San Diego State Aztecs
Building for next year: New Mexico Lobos, Wyoming Cowboys
After more than meeting expectations a year ago, Boise State will enter the season not just as the MWC favorite, but will have an excellent shot at getting back to the CFP as well. The Broncos should still face some stiff opposition in league play that could derail those dreams however, with it becoming a real guess at who can rebuild quickly following a number of key portal losses on just about every roster. Coaching continuity will matter at places like SJSU and Air Force, while upgrades at Utah State (and perhaps UNLV) could make for a very tough middle class of teams in what will be some programs’ farewell before conference realignment breaks up part of the conference in 2026.
Pac-12
Favorites: Oregon State Beavers
Building for next year: Washington State Cougars
It’s still a strange interim year for the Pac-12 before the arrival of six new schools to the league, so Oregon State and Washington State will be hearing plenty of jokes about being in a two-team league for 2025 yet again. The Beavers landed Duke transfer Maalik Murphy at quarterback and could punch above their weight against a schedule that features five power-conference teams while the Cougs are in full rebuilding mode and will also have to figure out just how much they want to invest in football moving forward. In a fascinating move, the teams will play each other home and away this season.
Sun Belt
Favorites: Georgia Southern Eagles, James Madison Dukes
Dark horse: Arkansas State Red Wolves
Aiming high: Appalachian State Mountaineers, Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, Georgia State Panthers, Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, South Alabama Jaguars, Southern Miss Golden Eagles, Texas State Bobcats
Battling for a bowl: Old Dominion Monarchs, Troy Trojans
Building for next year: Marshall Thundering Herd, Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks
The Sun Belt has really closed the gap with the AAC and MWC in recent years and could once again have a very fun title race that comes down to the final few weeks in November. James Madison and Georgia Southern return enough to be labeled the favorites, but there’s a case to be made for five to six programs emerging from the league gauntlet to wind up as a fringe top 25 squad.
Notable players arriving
Transfers: Duke Blue Devils QB Maalik Murphy (Oregon State), UNLV QB Matthew Sluka (James Madison), Alabama Crimson Tide DB DeVonta Smith (Notre Dame), Miami Hurricanes TE Riley Williams (Oregon State), Montana State Bobcats RB Scottre Humphrey (New Mexico)
Freshmen: Notre Dame OT Will Black, Notre Dame LB Madden Faraimo, Notre Dame DL Christopher Burgess Jr., Memphis QB AJ Hill, Boise State RB Greg Ard
Notable departures
Draft: Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty, Notre Dame CB Benjamin Morrison, Marshall edge Mike Green, Bowling Green TE Harold Fannin Jr., Washington State WR Kyle Williams
Transfers: Nevada OT Isaiah World (Oregon Ducks), Washington State QB John Mateer (Oklahoma Sooners), Tulane QB Darian Mensah (Duke Blue Devils), New Mexico QB Devon Dampier (Utah Utes), Army edge Elo Modozie (Georgia Bulldogs)
New coaches
The list of new coaches around the Group of 5 coming into the season is significant and will make for an interesting set of expectations for several programs after making some splashy hires following a disappointing 2024.
In the AAC, there’s a good mix of experienced veterans taking a bigger job (Temple’s K.C. Keeler, Charlotte’s Tim Albin) and some very fresh-faced young coaches trying to bring something new to the table (FAU’s Zach Kittley, Tulsa’s Tre Lamb). Keep an eye on Rice’s Scott Abell as he’s somebody who was plucked from the FCS Pioneer League at Davidson to take over on South Main with a unique spread offense that runs at a very fast pace.
Conference USA has a similar vibe going on with longtime Florida A&M Rattlers head coach Willie Simmons leading FIU now while former NC Central Eagles coach Jerry Mack left being a position coach to return to leading the program at Kennesaw State. Longtime defensive coordinator Charles Kelly takes over for Rich Rodriguez at reigning conference champ Jacksonville State and Phil Longo has big shoes to fill at Sam Houston State in his first head coaching gig at the FBS level.
Over in the MAC, five new coaches arrive, headlined by the hire of Eddie George at Bowling Green. The former Ohio State Buckeyes star and NFL All-Pro led the Tennessee State Tigers to the FCS playoff last year and will now take over a pretty stable Falcons program which has gone to three straight bowl games. Ball State’s Mike Uremovich, CMU’s Matt Drinkall and UMass’s Joe Harasymiak are all newbies with interesting approaches to difficult jobs while Mark Carney will serve as the interim in 2025 at Kent State.
The Mountain West is even more interesting than last season with a collection of notable names who have all been head coaches elsewhere. Ex-North Dakota State Bison title-winner Matt Entz is now at Fresno State after a brief stop with the USC Trojans while Jason Eck takes over at New Mexico following some excellent work with the Idaho Vandals. The two biggest names in the coaching meetings are likely at UNLV with former ESPNer Dan Mullen trying to revive his coaching career in the desert and Bronco Mendenhall returning to the Beehive State to give some stability to Utah State. Pac-12 side Washington State also plucked Jimmy Rogers to replace Jake Dickert after the former won an FCS national title with the South Dakota State Jackrabbits.
Finally, the Sun Belt welcomes in three new coaches who have a chance to win right away in App State’s Dowell Loggains, Marshall’s Tony Gibson and Southern Miss’s Charles Huff.
Coaches on the hot seat
After several active cycles on the lower levels of the coaching market, the amount of programs who enter the coming season with a coach on a burning hot seat seems much smaller than in recent years. Easily the most discussed situation will be that of UAB’s Trent Dilfer, who has talked a big game but has severely underperformed at a place that had gotten accustomed to winning at a decent clip since bringing the program back. Dilfer’s buyout was far too much to let him go after last season but another year of subpar results could change that calculus given how relatively few supporters he’s managed to rally to his cause. A bad start to the campaign could see an athletic director change before the ultimate decision on Dilfer is made.
Further west, Louisiana Tech’s Sonny Cumbie might have an even hotter seat and got a rare reprieve in 2024 that brought about an unusual arrangement where he was all but forced to give up play-calling duties and had to hire an offensive coordinator in conjunction with the administration. A bowl game is an absolute must in Ruston, La., but ideally there would be even more progress at this stage in his tenure.
Up in the MAC, a sea of turnover has quieted the amount of coaches up against things, but there are two places to keep an eye on. Kent State is already open—Mark Carney is serving as interim after the school fired Kenni Burns this spring—while Joe Moorhead is 8–28 across three seasons at Akron and will now have a new AD who didn’t hire him making a determination over his fate if improvement between the lines doesn’t take place.
Finally, it’s worth bringing up Timmy Chang at Hawai’i. He’s 13–25 overall at his alma mater and, while the school doesn’t want to fire a beloved figure in the program’s history, another year without a bowl could start to ramp up pressure on seeing progress. There’s not a lot of money on hand and there’s no AD around right now either, but the constant meddling with the football program from a number of different directions could make for some difficult conversations down the road.
Final word
It was in many respects a banner season for the Group of 5 and the chief FBS independent in 2024, with Notre Dame making it all the way to the CFP title game and Boise State not only being a worthy champion, but a surprising three-seed in the tournament. Reaching such highs again will be extremely difficult, especially in light of an offseason that was full of transfer portal activity.
There is a flip side to the fact that so many teams in the various conferences are so closely bunched however as it should make for some really fun championship races over the course of the season. There may be much more attention heaped upon the power conferences but the action in the Group of 5 is certainly worth keeping an eye on in 2025 given how compelling some of the play figures to be this fall.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Group of 5, Independent Football Primer: Notre Dame Hopeful for CFP Bid Again.
