We are about to embark on a Group of Five college football journey, and we don't plan to come up for air until the holidays.
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FanBuzz wants to become the national platform for college football's Group of Five conferences. The American Athletic Conference (AAC), Conference-USA (C-USA), Mid-American Conference (MAC), Mountain West Conference (MWC), and Sun Belt Conference (SBC) will now become a new focus on our site. We will tell the stories of these 64 schools (61 in conferences and three independents), talk to the players and coaches, track their seasons, offer original predictions, and mix it up with their awesome fanbases. FanBuzz will be the home for the conferences that give us great Division I college football sometimes as often as five nights a week. We will also have FCS coverage.
I'm Brian McLaughlin, and I'll head up this project. My national roots began with The Sporting News for a five-year stint, and running the PARADE Magazine All-American teams for seven years. When it comes to this FanBuzz G5 idea, I did something similar with an outfit out of Seattle called HERO Sports. We covered the FCS in much the same way our approach will be with these five conferences above. We felt like there wasn't anywhere near enough exposure for this level that had its schools on ESPN Gameday, had potential first-round draft picks (Carson Wentz that particular year, Cooper Kupp a year later, Darius Leonard after that), and just generally gave monster Power Five schools fits. Hell, the FCS is Division I football, too.
The same thing goes for the Group of Five conferences. We have a slew of high-level draft prospects for next year's draft, and that's just for 2024. Last year, Tulane was the top G5 team, beating Southern California in the Cotton Bowl, and a stout Kansas State team earlier in the year. Clearly, the most talented players at this level — who, at times get to play on a standalone platform on a weeknight primetime slot on ESPN — are pretty darned good. So, is the major sports news circuit covering this group of schools on a day-to-day basis?
Absolutely not. Not even close to it.
But we will.
What to Expect From FanBuzz's Group of Five Coverage
Photo by Scott W. Grau/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Our team of writers is pumped to be covering G5, and we want to win over each school's unique fanbase. We want to talk to you on social media, we want to know what you want to see, what you think of what we're doing, and what you think of your team. We want your input.
We also want to tell great stories. We want to recognize the special people many of these players truly are, to get past the facemasks and get into the gridiron soul. We want to meet the lively coaches—and there are many—and see what makes them tick.
Anthony Nachreiner, an experienced sports broadcaster, will be the talent on our Podcast about G5: "BMac and the Nach's College Football Podcast." We will have a podcast out on Monday, July 17 to tell you all more about FanBuzz's latest launch, which will be made available immediately on Spreaker and Google Google Podcasts. (You'll soon be able to find us on Apple and your other favorite listening platforms!)
We also will have a talented team of writers covering the AAC, MAC, C-USA, Mountain West, and Sun Belt every week. You can look forward to news content about each of the conferences within the G5, interviews and profiles on coaches and players, on-site game coverage, and so much more.
Here's FanBuzz's conference preview schedule:
- July 24 - AAC week
- July 31 - C-USA week
- Aug. 7 - MAC week
- Aug. 14 - Mountain West week
- Aug. 21 - Sun Belt week
We're so excited about this project, and we hope you are too. Give us a follow and give us feedback. (Please!)
Here we go.
