Group of Five expert picks 2024: Which non-Power Four team will make expanded College Football Playoff

The 2024 season brings unprecedented opportunity for the Group of Five. The new 12-team College Football Playoff format means that a team outside of the Power Four ranks will be guaranteed one of the five conference champion auto-bids in the CFP for the first time in history.

While that’s still not a ton of representation for a level that boasts five conferences, it’s much better than the previous process. Throughout a decade of the four-team CFP, only one Group of Five school — Cincinnati in 2021 — has made the cut. Great teams, like UCF in 2017 and even Cincinnati in 2020, were left with a consolation New Year’s Six invite to show for their efforts.

The race for that one spot promises to be exciting. There are, theoretically, 66 teams in play as the 2024 season kicks off.
Even then, some teams appear ahead of the pack in the waning preseason. Liberty, fresh off a 13-1 season under coach Jamey Chadwell, has generated a ton of buzz. Boise State is looking to impress in its first year under rookie coach Spencer Danielson.

Even Memphis, which burst onto the national stage under the likes of Justin Fuente and Mike Norvell, has steadily inched back into the spotlight with Ryan Silverfield leading the way. With so many moving parts, there’s always one team that can come out of nowhere and take the Group of Five by storm.

Below our CBS Sports experts selected their top five Group of Five teams in the 2024 season and predicted which team will make history and earn a historic bid into the expanded College Football Playoff. 

Top five Group of Five teams 

Group of Five CFP bid

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Author : Will Backus

Publish date : 2024-08-23 14:15:16

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