College Sports Journal Sagarin FBS G5 Top 25–Preseason 2023
Below are the Top 25 Group of Five (G5) preseason rankings based on the Sagarin rankings for the 2023 season. CSJ will show weekly rankings from the Sagarin rankings throughout the season and will have a final ranking after the national championship game in January.
With conference realignment, four schools that were showcased in year’s past in BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF (Central Florida) are no longer a part of the G5 as all four will be a part of the Power Five’s Big 12 Conference starting this fall.
With the departure of those four schools, there are two new G5 schools that transitioned up to from the Division I FCS ranks in Sam Houston and Jacksonville State with both being in the new look Conference USA.
In total, there will be 64 G5 teams this year that includes the five conferences of the American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, Mid-America Conference, Mountain West Conference, and Sun Belt Conference. There are also three independent teams in Army, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Sagarin rankings provide the only rankings that actually ranks all Division I schools but our rankings will show just the G5 side of things and have been used for several years with his own computer ranking system to distinguish strength of schedule and strength of team when comparing teams.
You can see the full Division I Sagarin rankings at Jeff’s site itself.
In this preseason ranking, perennial G5 power Boise State starts the season as the top team in the rankings. UTSA, who is a newcomer to the AAC and were last year’s C-USA champions starts at the #2 position.
Appalachian State starts the season as the third ranked team, while last year’s top Group of Five squad and Cotton Bowl winner in Tulane starts as the #4 team. SMU rounds out the Top Five as the third team out of the AAC.
See the remaining Top 25 in the chart below.
In the rankings, you will see the the G5 rankings first and the overall Division I ranking to the right of the the G5 ranking.
The numbers show the ranking in the Group of Five Top 25 as well as the overall Division I ranking.
The Top 10 and Top 30 are the overall Division I Sagarin rankings.
Click on the rankings to see a larger view.
The following are the individual G5 conference rankings highlighted in yellow and the overall rankings within overall ranking in Division I FBS with dedicated divisions in conferences shown separately.
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.
Reach him at this email or click below:
