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20 key offseason topics for 2020: No. 5. How do the college football Group of Five conferences – AAC, C-USA, MAC, MW, Sun Belt – rank in the offseason?
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20 for 2020 Offseason Topics
20. Best Teams To Not Make CFP
19: Teams That Will Rebound Big
18. Teams That Will Fall Back
17: Every Power 5 Team’s Letdown Game
16. Top 5 Instant Impact New Head Coaches
15. 2nd Year Coaches Who’ll Be Better
14. Power 5 Hot Seat Coach Rankings
13. Key Transfers You Forgot About
12. Five Big Power 5 Upset Alerts
11. Great Players About To Go Nuclear
10. Group of 5 Teams In New Year’s Six Chase
9. Power 5 Sleeper Teams
8. Most Interesting Quarterback Battles
7. 5 Teams That Might Disappoint
6. 5 Teams That Might Surprise
We didn’t get spring football to get a better handle on all the teams and conferences, but here’s our look at where all the Group of Five conferences – American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt – appear to be.
If and when the season gets rolling, we’ll reevaluate then.
5. Conference USA
This might seem a bit extreme considering the good teams at the top of the rock, but there’s way too much dead weight dragging down the rest of the league.
Louisiana Tech should be fantastic. Coming off a good year with the Independence Bowl win over Miami to close things out, it should be the star of the show.
Willie Taggart takes over a strong Florida Atlantic team, Marshall – as always – will be solid – and WKU and Southern Miss will be players.
UAB will once again put together a great record as it fattens up on the weak and the sad, North Texas and Middle Tennessee should bounce back a bit after clunkers, and FIU should be back in the battle for a bowl bid.
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And then there’s everyone else.
UTEP is WAY overdue for a wee bit of happy.
It’s been a brutal run for the Miners, but it’s still going to be an uphill climb. Old Dominion and UTSA are starting fresh with new head coaches, and Rice is still trying to turn the corner in Year Three under Mike Bloomgren.
The midsection on down is just too mediocre-to-awful. However, there’s no real argument if you want to move Conference USA up a spot or so and knock down …