In college football, the Group of Five are five athletic conferences whose members are part of NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The five conferences are the American Athletic Conference (American or AAC),[a] Conference USA (CUSA), Mid-American Conference (MAC), Mountain West Conference (MW or MWC)[b] and Sun Belt Conference (SBC).[c][1][2][3][4][5]
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 Playoff bowls. 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.
- Independents
| Independent teams |
|---|
| Army[j] |
| Notre Dame[k] |
| UConn |
| UMass [l] |
Map of Group of Five teams
2023 Map of Group of Five Teams |
|---|
 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.
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