Welcome back, College Football Fans, to our eighth installment of Preseason SOS. This time we will be finishing up the Group of 5 with the final two conferences who play the most difficult G5 schedules in the country. As a reminder, the average FBS (Power 5 and G5) PS SOS is 7.348 and the average G5 PS SOS is 6.697.
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Let’s start with 7th, or “G”, schedule is the American Athletic Conference, AAC, with its 11 members (with a bunch of changes coming for the 2023 season) who average 6.746 PS SOS and were a combined 73-65 in 2021. That included an historic playoff appearance by Cincinnati. While 2 of the members have top 50 schedules (including the only G5 in the top 25 for all of college football), 4 of them have bottom 25 FBS schedules including the Bearcats. Teams don’t control their conference slate, theoretically, so we’ll list their non-conference opponents; (F)=FCS, (P)=Power 5, (N)=Neutral Site. Let’s look at the full slate:
| Team | 21 W-L | 21 SOS Rank | 22 SOS | SOS Rank | NC-H | NC -A |
| Navy (13) | 4-8 | 46 | 8.863 | 13 | Delaware (F) | Air Force, Notre Dame (PN), Army (N) |
| South Florida | 2-10 | 71 | 7.851 | 43 | BYU, Howard (F) | Florida (P), Louisville (P) |
| Tulsa | 7-6 | 65 | 7.196 | 70 | N Illinois, Jacksonville St (F) | Wyoming, Mississippi (P) |
| Tulane | 2-10 | 58 | 7.186 | 71 | UMASS, Alcorn St (F), Southern Miss | Kansas St (P) |
| East Carolina | 7-5 | 82 | 6.641 | 91 | NC St (P), Old Dominion, Campbell (F) | BYU |
| SMU | 8-4 | 102 | 6.561 | 93 | Lamar (F), TCU (P) | North Texas, Maryland (P) |
| Houston | 12-2 | 125 | 6.319 | 106 | Kansas (P), Rice | UTSA, Texas Tech (P) |
| Temple (25) | 3-9 | 112 | 6.293 | 107 | Lafayette (F), Rutgers (P), UMASS | Duke (P) |
| Cincinnati (13) | 13-1 | 77 | 6.083 | 119 | Kennesaw St (F), Indiana (P) | Arkansas (P), Miami OH (N) |
| Memphis (9) | 6-6 | 94 | 5.951 | 123 | Arkansas St, North Texas, N Alabama (F) | Mississippi St (P) |
| UCF (3) | 9-4 | 124 | 5.263 | 129 | South Carolina St (F), Louisville (P), Georgia Tech (P) | FAU |
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And the most difficult G5 conference, and one that I think should outpace the American for Best G5 this year, is the 12-team Mountain West Conference. Last year they were 84-69 (best winning percentage of the G5) and supported 4 10-win teams. This year, their average PS SOS of a whopping 7.049 with 3 teams in the top 34 and only 1 in the bottom 25 for the FBS. Here is the complete list:
| Team | 21 W-L | 21 SOS Rank | 22 PS SOS | PS SOS Rank | NC-H | NC-A |
| UNLV – W | 2-10 | 60 | 8.261 | 26 | Idaho St (F), North Texas | California (P), Notre Dame (P) |
| Colorado St – M | 3-9 | 86 | 8.218 | 29 | Middle Tennessee, Sacramento St (F) | Michigan (P), Washington St (P) |
| Boise St – M | 7-5 | 39 | 8.127 | 34 | Tennessee Martin (F), BYU | Oregon St (P), UTEP |
| Hawaii – W | 6-7 | 97 | 7.274 | 67 | Vanderbilt (P), W Kentucky, Duquesne (F) | Michigan (P), New Mexico St |
| San Jose St – W | 5-7 | 111 | 6.979 | 77 | Portland St (F), W Michigan | Auburn (P), New Mexico St |
| Wyoming – M | 7-6 | 92 | 6.941 | 80 | Tulsa, N Colorado (F) | Illinois (P), BYU |
| New Mexico – M | 3-9 | 90 | 6.936 | 81 | Maine (F), UTEP | LSU (P), New Mexico St |
| Utah St – M | 11-3 | 105 | 6.784 | 84 | UCONN, Weber St (F) | Alabama (P), BYU |
| Nevada – W | 8-5 | 98 | 6.731 | 87 | Texas St, Incarnate Word (F) | New Mexico St, Iowa (P) |
| San Diego St – W | 12-2 | 93 | 6.461 | 99 | Arizona (P), Idaho St (F), Toledo | Utah (P) |
| Air Force – M | 10-3 | 110 | 6.386 | 101 | N Iowa (F), Colorado (P), Navy | Army (N) |
| Fresno St – W (4) | 10-3 | 101 | 5.495 | 128 | Cal Poly (F), Oregon St (P) | Southern Cal (P), UCONN |
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That’s it for today. The next installment will be about the weakest Power 5 conference, based on PS SOS, going into 2022. If you’d like, take a guess in the comments. Speaking of comments, if you see a need for improvements in the blog, post them there. If you like what you see, it’s great if you let me know, but even better if you share the blog with others. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you again in a few days, G.
