Alex Golesh's USF Bulls were not far off from making the College Football Playoff. Had they won one more game in the regular season, they could've qualified for the American Championship Game and gone to the CFP had they been victorious, owning two losses, just like the Tulane Green Wave did.
The Athletic's Joe Rexrode implied USF could've done more damage in the CFP's first round than Tulane and the James Madison Dukes had they not lost to the Navy Midshipmen, Memphis Tigers, or Miami Hurricanes, potentially even winning a game.
With that said, Rexrode still supports Group of 5 schools getting whatever chance the CFP selection committee decides to grant them. Rexrode shot down the complaints about G5 teams making the playoff from folks who said the CFP could never be like March Madness with major Cinderella stories sweeping the nation.
"I still think South Florida at its best this season could have won a game in this thing or made a real run at it, but the Bulls had some costly failures, and we’ll never know. I’m confident better G5 showings will happen in the future, even in the roster-raiding era," Rexrode wrote.
"I don’t know if we’ll ever get an upset, or even a serious run at one, in a game like Tulane at Ole Miss or James Madison at Oregon. But I’d like to find out, because I know those are some of the very best moments sports has to offer. This tournament and the NCAA Tournament don’t compare perfectly, because an overmatched football team has much less of a chance than an undersized No. 16 seed that can have a magical night from 3-point range.
"But the inexplicable happens in football, too. Most of the 1-16, 2-15 and 3-14 games are blowouts, and no one complains about it. We wait for the one or two games a year that provide the unthinkable or a brush with the unthinkable, and it’s what we remember most from that tournament. This isn’t just about the access of Group of 5 teams to the hope and thrill that comes with a spot in the College Football Playoff; it’s about our access to them."
Hugh Freeze and Bryan Harsin cautionary G5 tales for Alex Golesh hype
Without question, had the 12-team College Football Playoff existed in 2020, Hugh Freeze's Liberty Flames would've made the field. Liberty owned a win over the feel-good Coastal Carolina Chanticleers in the Cure Bowl which may have been a No. 8-No. 9 matchup, and defeated the Syracuse Orange and Virginia Tech Hokies that year in the regular season because of incoherent COVID-19-affected scheduling.
Hell, Bryan Harsin's Boise State Broncos would've made the field in 2019, if not at least several other years prior to that.
Why mention this seemingly irrelevant hypothetical? Well, we've now seen how Freeze and Harsin translated from a top G5 squad to working at AU and against elite SEC defenses.
Golesh seems to have a lot of the qualities Freeze lacked from an X's and O's perspective, and that Harsin lacked from a general work ethic standpoint, but it remains to be seen what level of talent he brings to the Plains just yet.