Long and Suite Preview: Non-Automatic Qualifiers

Marshall brings back star quarterback Rakeem Cato, but could the best thing the Herd have going for it be the schedule?

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

The BCS era may be over, but the legacy of the "BCS Buster" lives on.

You know the teams. Those plucky mid-majors that somehow run the table, upset an established power along the way, and earn respect in a major bowl game.

Central Florida was the latest small school to crash the party (Really I mean small-time program. UCF is the second-largest school in the country, as anyone that went there will tell you. Seriously, they bring it up a lot). The Knights won the American with an 11-1 regular season record, only dropping a tight one out of conference to South Carolina, and upset offensive juggernaut Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl.

This season we get our first taste of the "Group of Five." That is, as you might imagine, a Group of Five smaller conferences, including Conference USA, The Mountain West, The Sun Belt, The MAC and, of course, the American. The new College Football Playoff guarantees the highest ranked team in those five conferences, plus Division 1 FBS Independent teams other than Notre Dame (who qualify as a major conference school because, money), a spot in a marquee bowl game associated with the playoff.

That means that, while the likelihood of any smaller programs making the playoff is small, the spirit of the BCS Buster can live on. Here are some "Group of Five" and Independent teams to watch.

Long and Suite Preview: The American Athletic Conference

UCF's Blake Bortles should be the AAC's most important player not named Teddy Bridgewater.

By Joe Parello  @HerewegoJoe

The new American Athletic Conference was born out of the great schism between the Big East's "Catholic 7" and the conference's not-so-Catholic, football playing members.

Those seven schools chose to separate and form a league for "basketball-minded schools" (No, the ridiculousness of Catholic institutions calling themselves basketball-minded is not lost on me), and they took the Big East name with them.

Left in their wreckage is the AAC, a conference now comprised of teams on their way to the greener pastures of more powerful conferences (Louisville and Rutgers), teams desperately trying to follow those schools out the door (Cincinnati and UConn), a late Big East addition stuck in limbo (South Florida), a team the Big East once cast off (Temple), and a horde of former Conference USA squads (Central Florida, Houston, Memphis and SMU).