Coaches and fans in the Big 12 and the ACC that want the G5 excluded from future renditions of the College Football Playoff should be careful what they wish for. Once the SEC and Big Ten discard half of the FBS, they’ll turn attention towards the two other P4 conferences because I have news for you – they see SMU and TCU as closer to UTSA and North Texas than Texas and Texas A&M. 

The ACC champion was left out and a BYU team that went 11-1 in the regular season and only lost to the No. 4 team in the country wasn’t even included in the national discussion for the final at-large bid. The same voices on national podcasts and in the back rooms of conference meetings don’t view the Big 12 or the ACC as true peers and when the Super League forms, more than just the G5 will be on the chopping block. 

That’s why everyone not affiliated with an SEC or Big Ten program should be rooting for Texas Tech to beat Oregon in the Orange Bowl. That result, especially if it is an easy win for the Ducks, will be used as a referendum on the Big 12 and every member in it. The Miami win over Texas A&M was equally important for the ACC, which was the first win for the conference in the CFP since Clemson beat Ohio State in 2019. 

The perception of college football is that the FBS is divided into three groups – the SEC/Big Ten, the ACC/Big 12, and the G5. The SEC and the Big Ten reign over the sport, illustrated by the power the two conferences have in the CFP decision-making and the fact that five SEC teams made the 12-team field and that three of the top five seeds are from the Big Ten. Fifteen of the 24 teams that’ve made the CFP over the last two years are from that conference. The ACC and Big 12 have combined for five, only two fewer than the G5. 

The ACC doesn’t have as big of a perception issue because of relatively recent success at the top of the conference. Clemson last won a national championship in 2018, Florida State in 2013, and Miami in 2001. Not a single current Big 12 program has won a national championship since 1990 when Colorado split it with Georgia Tech. BYU won it in 1984 and TCU in 1939. The Big 12 is 1-7 in the College Football Playoff and the lone win – the TCU victory over Michigan in the 2022 Fiesta Bowl – is overshadowed by the Frogs’ 65-7 loss to Georgia in the championship game. 

That puts a ton of pressure on Texas Tech, not that the Red Raiders needed more motivation for the biggest game in program history. The two results of games involving G5 teams last week – Tulane’s 41-10 loss to Ole Miss and James Madison’s 51-34 defeat at Oregon – will be used to set a cap on G5 exclusion, limiting it to only those programs that rank inside some arbitrary number that the committee can then use as a barrier for entry. The national podcasters clearly have marching orders to push for a G5 playoff and that idea is gaining steam everywhere but within G5 programs and fan bases. 

Why wouldn’t the Big 12 and ACC be next? Arizona State lost in overtime last year to Texas. If Texas Tech, which was the class of the conference this year, loses by 10 or more points, expect the narratives to move towards if the Big 12 and ACC deserve automatic entry. What happens if both Texas Tech and Miami are run out of their respective bowl games by Big Ten teams and the Final Four consists of only Big Ten and SEC squads? 

A Super League is inevitable. The SEC and Big Ten, and maybe a few select schools from the other conferences, are set to break away from the rest of the FBS when the ACC eventually folds. Conference realignment and television executives have set the course for college football and the direction it is headed doesn’t leave much room for the little guy. 

But it feels like there is a misconception of who the little guy is. I believe it embodies more than just the G5, soon to be G6 when the Pac-12 is back in full swing. The little guy also includes more than two-thirds of the Big 12 and the ACC. The belief that Alabama and Georgia and Ohio State want to split money with Iowa State and Houston and Georgia Tech is naïve. The bottom of the SEC and Big Ten might be in trouble, too. What place do Rutgers and Mississippi State have in the next iteration of the sport? 

The Europeans revolted when the idea of a Super League was floated in soccer. It feels like many of the most prominent football voices in America are wishing for it. That should strike fear in anyone who loves the sport as it currently exists. Revenue sharing and the transfer portal isn’t the threat to college football – it is its leaders – the commissioners and the television suits. They want to strip everything from the sport that can’t be measured in dollar signs like rivalries and regionality and the underdog. 

What’ll remain is what college football purists swear they hate – the NFL. That’s the road we’re undertaking as the big brands push out the rest of the sport. Maybe that’ll serve guys like Kirk Herbstreit and Joel Klatt and whoever else believes the sport should fracture and leave out the G5. But I wonder if they’ll be singing the same tune when they realize that the collective fan bases of the 70-plus schools that don’t make the cut tune out? 

If the Big 12 doesn’t want to be thrown into the trash heap alongside the G5, programs like Texas Tech need to step up and compete for national titles. Dominating the conference won’t count for much when the decision makers don’t view the conference as a peer to the SEC and Big Ten. The only way to change that perception is to win big games, like the Orange Bowl on Jan. 1.