This article is about a group of college football conferences. For the emerging economies group, see
Group of Five. For other uses, see
G5 (disambiguation).
These conferences are considered less prestigious and are generally perceived to have lower quality of play compared to the
Power Five conferences, although numerous Group of Five teams have upset Power Five teams in regular-season and bowl games, and the
Cincinnati Bearcats appeared in the four-team
College Football Playoff as a member of the American Athletic Conference.
Beginning in the 2024 season, at least one Group of Five conference champion is guaranteed entry to the
College Football Playoff, as the top six ranked conference champions automatically advance to the playoff.[6]
Division I football conferences
The Group of Five conferences are five of the ten conferences in NCAA Division I FBS. The other five FBS conferences are informally known as the
Power Five.[1][2][3][5] In addition, a number of schools compete in FBS as
independents in football.
The terms Group of Five and Power Five are not formally defined by the
National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and the precise origins of the terms are unknown. However, each of the ten conferences is named in the NCAA's Division I manual.[7][8][9] A notable difference between the Group of Five and Power Five is the level of institutional autonomy granted to member institutions of the Power Five conferences.[10][11][12]
The Group of Five is often considered disadvantaged as compared to the Power Five, as its constituent members do not have similar access to
New Year's Six or
College Football Playoffbowls. Since the
BCS era, this has been an ongoing area of contention among NCAA Division I schools.[3] In November 2012, an agreement was reached to guarantee a spot in one of the New Year's Six bowl games to a team from one of the Group of Five conferences, beginning with the 2014 football season.[5]
On December 5, 2021,
Cincinnati became the first Group of Five team to gain entry into the College Football Playoff,[13] and the only team to do so in the original four-team format.
In sports other than football (mainly basketball), conferences outside of the Power Five are known as
mid-major conferences.
Current conferences and teams
The ten current FBS conferences are listed below. For the Group of Five, the football members of each conference are also listed.[d] Independent NCAA Division I FBS teams are listed in a third table.
This map shows Group of Five teams during the
2023 season. Colors indicate conference membership: American (blue), C-USA (green), MAC (pink), Mountain West (orange), Sun Belt (red) and Group of Five independent (grey). Not shown is
Hawaii, a football-only member of the Mountain West.
Notes
^The American Athletic Conference does not identify itself with an acronym, preferring "The American". AAC should not be confused with ACC, the abbreviation for the
Atlantic Coast Conference.
^The Mountain West Conference itself uses "MW", as shown in its logo.
^The Sun Belt Conference is commonly referred to as "Sun Belt", rather than by an initialism.
^As of the 2023–24 school year, one Group of Five conference has a full member that does not have a football team, namely
Wichita State in The American.
^SMU will be joining the ACC starting in the 2024 season.
^Kennesaw State will be joining Conference USA starting in the 2024 season.
^Delaware will be joining Conference USA starting in the 2025 season.
^Notre Dame normally competes as an independent in football; for the 2020 season, it competed as an ACC member.
^Army will join the American Athletic Conference as a football-only member starting in the 2024 season.
^Notre Dame is the only independent that is not generally grouped with the Group of Five, instead being grouped with the power conferences. Since 2014, it has had a scheduling alliance with the
ACC and previously had a unique clause among independent schools to allow for automatic qualification in the
BCS playoff system.
^UMass will be joining the MAC starting in the 2025 season.