Forde-Yard Dash: How the Group of 5 Power Struggle Should Play Out

The Pac-12, American Athletic and Mountain West conferences are all making moves in the latest realignment shuffle.

The American Athletic Conference is in a fight with the Pac-12 to claim they are the No. 5 conference in college sports. / Chuck Cook-Imagn Images

Editor’s note: Memphis, Tulane, South Florida and UTSA reaffirmed their commitment to the AAC in a joint statement Monday afternoon, stating that is in each school's “individual and collective best interest to uphold our commitment to each other.”

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football (assumed identities sold separately for players and coaches in Chapel Hill). First Quarter: Twelve Angry Men.

Second Quarter: The G5 Power Struggle, and How It Should Play Out

After spending three years devouring itself at the highest level of Division I athletics, the realignment revenue battle has moved down the food chain from the power conferences to the best of the rest. This week, much could be decided on that front.

The resurgent Pac-12 (13) and the American Athletic Conference (14) are duking it out for the right to claim “We’re No. 5!” Meanwhile, the Mountain West (15) is trying to keep the lights on and the storefront staffed.

Being the fifth-best conference matters greatly in terms of College Football Playoff access, given the automatic bids for the top five leagues. That is, for the moment, a temporary setup; nothing is guaranteed beyond 2026 in terms of guaranteed access to the playoff. (More on that below.)

The Washington State Cougars–Oregon State Beavers axis that comprised the Pac-12 is fresh off raiding the Mountain West for the Boise State Broncos, Colorado State Rams, Fresno State Bulldogs and San Diego State Aztecs. Now it is trying to finish its rebuild by plucking two-to-four members of the AAC—the Memphis Tigers, Tulane Green Wave, South Florida Bulls and maybe UTSA Roadrunners. Time is considered of the essence, with pitches being made late last week and decisions expected this week, per sources.

The complicating factor is that the rosy revenue projections for the Pac-12 Lite are just vague enough that schools must make a leap of faith to leave, if they are indeed trying to decide right now. There are estimates of $10 million to $15 million per school in media-rights revenue in the Pac-12 Lite—which would be a tangible bump up from the AAC—but those might be overly optimistic. As of now, there are no concrete TV offers to present.

If you’re trying to get Tulane to travel in all sports from New Orleans—a costly and inconvenient airline city—to Pullman, Wash., and Corvallis, Ore., it has to be worth the time and effort. Trust us, it’ll be great isn’t the most reassuring revenue pitch in an industry where eight-figure cost increases per school are expected to be part of the 2025 landscape if the House v. NCAA settlement indeed happens. (Another news item to be monitored this week.) 

That’s not to say the theoretical new Pac-12 is lacking potential advantages. If it locks down the top programs from the AAC, it will stake an ironclad claim to being the No. 5 league. That would facilitate a push for a greater slice of the CFP pie than the rest of the Group of 5 (though rest assured it wouldn’t be coming out of the shares already allotted to the Power 4 of the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC). It could present a semi-compelling array of broadcast inventory in at least three time zones—four if it adds South Florida.

The impulse to move is understandable, moreso for Memphis than anyone. The Tigers have been agonizingly left out in a few realignment spasms, most notably and recently when the Big 12 added BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston last year. Three of those schools were AAC peers who got the call-up. Louisville, a former peer, made the jump to the ACC a decade ago. Another AAC member, SMU, money-whipped its way into a power conference this year.

Meanwhile, Memphis has been bristling in lesser-than limbo. The program has an avid following in a significant city, and has had some notable success in men’s basketball and football. You can’t blame Memphis—and to a lesser degree Tulane and South Florida—for feeling some urgency. After being left on the curb, any move can seem like a good move.

But here is the problem: This all feels like a mad scramble for a temporary solution. It’s a short-term fix that might not actually fix anything.

Start with the possibility that the fifth automatic CFP bid goes away when the details are hammered out for 2027 and beyond. It would be a lousy power grab by the top four leagues, but also completely in line with everything else they’ve done in recent years. If they want to break away from the rest of FBS and/or Division I, that’s one place to start. (Another possibility, more palatable: they could also expand the playoff to 14 teams and still offer the G5 an autobid.)

Secondly, a lot of people in the industry are expecting the next major conference shake-up to occur near the end of this decade or the beginning of the next. The Big Ten’s current collection of deals runs through 2030 and the Big 12 goes through ’31. The CFP contract goes through ’31. The SEC’s lasts a bit longer (’34). The ACC’s may or may not run through ’36, depending on legal wrangling and potential appeasement negotiations with squeaky wheels Florida State and Clemson—things could happen there faster than contracts currently stipulate.

So is the Pac-12 juice worth the squeeze here? Is a semi-lateral move in terms of prestige and revenue—but a major move in terms of geography in logistics—the smart play when the entire landscape could change in a few years? 

If The Dash were czar of the G5, this is how it would break down: 

Air Force (16) makes the biggest move, leaving the Mountain West to join its service-academy brethren in the AAC in football at least. Other sports might head to the West Coast Conference. Lack of a geographically compatible travel partner wouldn’t be as big an issue if this is a football-only move. This marriage has nearly happened before; now it could be imminent.

The antsy AAC members (17)—Memphis, Tulane, South Florida, UTSA, anyone else on the fence—stay where they are. Maybe they get an enhanced revenue cut for staying in the league, a concept that could continue to gain favor among the big dogs in other leagues. (ESPN reported Monday morning that such a deal could be offered by the Mountain West to keep its eight remaining members in the fold—most notably Air Force and UNLV.)

The Pac-12 settles where it should, adding UNLV (18) and Utah State (19) off the Mountain West remainder table. If the league wants a ninth member so it can play an eight-game, round-robin football schedule, there are options—Nevada and Fresno State.

The admittedly gutted Mountain West then raids the previously gutted Conference USA (20) and possibly the FCS ranks to fill out its new lineup. But an FCS call-up is much more expensive now, with the entry fee skyrocketing from $5,000 to $5 million. (This is the current membership’s way of saying to the FCS dreamers: We are full, go away.)

Consolidating power in the hands of a few conferences and at the expense of regional identity is only a good thing if you care about your school making money, which most fans do not. We’ve seen this before. Further diminishing the AAC for the benefit of Pac-12 Lite doesn’t solve anything. It likely would only rearrange the deck chairs before the ship hits the P4 iceberg in a few years.