It's still possible. I'm not sure where all the doom and gloom is coming from right now. There were three teams this year that were trying to burst onto the playoff/NY6 scene this year at different times during the season: BYU, Marshall and ECU. The scenarios for each are a little different, but they do offer some hope if you know what you are looking at.

BYU's schedule this year was not pretty. You can thank GT and ND for that all you want, but nobody outside of Provo cares about that. At the end of the day, the schedule is what it is, and had we run the table, we didn't have enough chances to prove that we belonged in the playoff. NY6? Absolutely. Playoff? I just don't think so, because our schedule was so soft.

ECU: had they run the table, they were in the playoff. That beatdown on UNC and beating South Carolina on the road might have been enough to turn the heads. They have the East Coast bias helping them and have been getting a LOT of publicity for even a 1 loss team about making the NY6. It was a possibility they could have made the playoff had they gone undefeated. Would they? IDK, but it was a possibility.

Marshall: just look at that schedule and you will see a cookie cutter for everything NOT to do. They did it all wrong. Playing in that conference, if they want any national respect, they have to load up on OOC games. Instead they scheduled like they were Bama, trying to save themselves for marriage. They haven't gotten any respect, and they don't deserve it. Cowards deserve no respect.

So what can we learn here?

If you want in the playoff, schedule UP early and often, and then win them all. If you don't, you don't deserve to be fighting for a NC anyway. If you load up your schedule with some nice P5 teams, and put a beatdown on them, people will take notice. These are not computers. Style points DO matter, so don't be afraid to hang 70 on UNC if you can. The playoff IS possible for a G5 team with a proper schedule and style points, but it will take a perfect storm of factors going their way to make that happen. They will have to schedule up, they will have to accrue some nice style points, often, and they will have to look like world beaters. They can't have a heavily loaded G5 schedule with patsies either. We DO have some control over that, so a game against ECU and NIU is infinitely more desirable than a game against NMST or UNLV. AFA, Boise or UNR is MUCH better than SMU, North Texas or UMass. While we cannot get a plethera of P5 teams on our schedule just yet, we CAN do a better job of getting fewer of the dregs of the G5 on our schedules, which really destroy a SOS.

All of these serve to raise the SOS and the public perception of the program, and if done properly, it CAN be done. Now can it be done under Bronco? He sure seems to think so, but has yet to show me any reason to believe him.