2020 FBS Group of Five Championship Games Highlights and Recaps
A year like no others had a week pretty much the same as the rest of the 2020 season. Only four of the five Group of Five championship games were played due to COVID-19 reasons for the Sun Belt Conference title game between Louisiana and Coastal Carolina.
Outside of that game, the other four games gave us very exiting games.
With the dust settled and Cincinnati edging Tulsa in the American Athletic Conference title game, there is little doubt that the highest ranked G5 in the Bearcats (who were #9 in the last College Football Playoff rankings) will be the top ranked team and go to a New Year’s Six bowl game.
The Bearcats used a last second field goal to defeat the Golden Hurricane to stay at least the best ranked G5 team most likely.
There could be an outside change that Cincinnati gets into the Top 4 but seems unlikely with Alabama and Ohio State also undefeated and the two one-loss teams in Notre Dame and the team that beat them in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game in Clemson and were ranked as the Top 4 teams in the last CFP rankings will move outside of those rankings. And even #5 Texas A&M picked up a road win at Tennessee so it looks like the Group of Five despite having three undefeated teams will be shutout of the Top Four once again.
Coastal Carolina, who was named the co-champions of the Sun Belt with Louisiana since their game could not take place, and San Jose State, who did defeat Boise State in the Mountain West Conference title game, are the other undefeated G5 teams this year.
Buffalo had a chance to make it four undefeated G5 teams but the Bulls could not handle Ball State in the Mid-American Conference title contest and Cardinals won the MAC for the first time since 1996.
UAB also pulled off an upset in the Conference USA title game in winning its second C-USA title in the last three years at Marshall. The Blazers pretty well dominated the Thundering Herd in a defensive minded game.
And in one make-up game this week in the Group of Five, Army hosted Air Force in what was the right to win the Commandar-in-Chief’s Trophy after both schools had previously defeated Navy. In another low scoring game, the Black Knights won the game on a late touchdown to capture the military academy trophy for the third time in the last four years.
Some bowl announcements have already been made but others will be announced following the College Football Playoff rankings later this Sunday.
Below are some highlights of each of these five contests (four title games and the Army-Air Force game).
Conference USA Championship Game—UAB 22 Marshall 13 (Huntington, W.Va.)
MAC Championship Game–Ball State 38 Buffalo 28 (Detroit, Mich.)
Mountain West Championship Game—San Jose State 34 Boise State 20 (Las Vegas, Nev.)
American Athletic Championship Game— Cincinnati 27 Tulsa 24 (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Army 10 Air Force 7 (West Point, N.Y.)
Originally from LaMoure, North Dakota, Kent is a 1996 graduate of North Dakota State University. His prior writing experience is over 15 years having previously worked with D2football.com, I-AA.org, and College Sporting News before coming to College Sports Journal in 2016. His main focus is college football is the Missouri Valley Football Conference within the Division I FCS. And in 2017, he began also to look at the FBS Group of Five conferences of the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.
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