By Pete Fiutak
Follow me … don’t cost nothin’ @PeteFiutak

You would’ve yawned if someone told you last year at this time that the four teams in the inaugural College Football Playoff would be Alabama, Florida State, Oregon and Ohio State – that was too obvious. Of course, the journey for those four powerhouses to get into the fun was hardly smooth, with TCU coming from out of nowhere and Baylor making a great case late in the process.

But at least they were in the discussion, which they wouldn’t have been during the BCS era.

Remember, it would’ve been an Alabama vs. Florida State national title game if the BCS was still in place, so what the playoff did more than anything else was open up the potential. Now that the polls don’t matter, there’s real, live hope for every team coming into the season.

Check that. Almost every team.

We know the basic criteria in place with the precedent set by the committee, so what’s the roadmap each team needs to try to follow?

1) You must win your conference championship.
2) You must finish undefeated or with one loss – as long as there’s a championship.
3) Unless you’re truly special, you need not apply to the committee if you don’t have Parts 1 and 2.

With that in mind, how is it possible for a Group of Five program to get into the playoff? What’s the Path to the Playoff, and is it remotely possible?

Lumping together all the teams from the American Athletic, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt, it’s going to take something truly crazy for any team outside of the Power 5 conferences to get in, but it might not be impossible. Here’s what has to happen.

Step One: Go undefeated and win the conference title

Yeah, that’s already a given, but it really matters to the Group of Fivers, and it’ll take more than merely finishing 13-0 with a championship – it has to be done in dominant and impressive fashion. There can’t be any slips, and that means no close wins, either. A Group of Five playoff team has to be an anomaly, and it has to be perfect – it can’t give the committee a reason to say no. Marshall started out last year 11-0 blowing away everyone in its path, but it still wasn’t within 100 miles of the playoff because …

Step Two: There has to be at least two impressive wins over Power 5 conference teams

And at least one of those Power 5 teams has to be great. That’s why the Thundering Herd weren’t even close – the best non-conference win was against Ohio – and it’s why Boise State wasn’t on the radar after getting blown out by Ole Miss to start the season. No one on the committee will give any credit to beating teams in Group of Five conference play, so there has to be something to go off of in the non-conference schedule.

Looking at the slates, who has the right non-conference games? If the below teams go unbeaten, and look impressive doing it, they’ll at least be able to make a claim that they deserve a long discussion. If your team is not among the 41 on this list – sorry Marshall – it has no real shot of being in the hunt for the playoff. Here are the teams that play at least two decent games against the power conferences. One note, BYU isn’t a Power Five team, but it’s good enough to be counted like one if there are other good non-conference games on the slate.

– Akron: at Oklahoma, Pitt
– Arkansas State: at USC, Missouri
– Ball State: at Texas A&M, at Northwestern
– Boise State: Washington, at BYU, at Virginia
– Bowling Green: at Tennessee, at Maryland, at Purdue
– Central Michigan: Oklahoma State, at Syracuse, at Michigan State
– Colorado State: Minnesota, Colorado
– East Carolina: at Florida, Virginia Tech and BYU
– Florida Atlantic: Miami, at Florida
– Fresno State: at Ole Miss, Utah, at BYU
– Georgia Southern: at West Virginia, at Georgia
– Hawaii: Colorado, at Ohio State, at Wisconsin
– Idaho: at USC, at Auburn
– Kent State: at Illinois, at Minnesota
– Louisiana Tech: at Kansas State, at Mississippi State
– UMass: at Colorado, at Notre Dame
– Miami University: at Wisconsin, Cincinnati
– New Mexico State: at Florida, at Ole Miss
– Memphis: at Kansas, Ole Miss
– Middle Tennessee: at Alabama, at Illinois, Vanderbilt
– Nevada: Arizona, at Texas A&M
– Northern Illinois: at Ohio State, at Boston College
– North Texas: at Iowa, at Tennessee
– Rice: at Texas, at Baylor
– San Diego State: at California, at Penn State
– San Jose State: at Oregon State, at Auburn, BYU
– South Alabama: at Nebraska, NC State
– SMU: Baylor, at TCU
– Southern Miss: Mississippi State, at Nebraska
– Temple: Penn State, Notre Dame
– Toledo: at Arkansas, Iowa State
– Troy: at Wisconsin, at Mississippi State
– Tulane: Duke, at Georgia Tech
– UCF: at Stanford, at South Carolina
– ULM: at Alabama, at Georgia
– UNLV: UCLA, at Michigan
– USF: at Florida State, at Maryland, Syracuse
– Utah State: at Utah, at Washington, BYU
– UTEP: at Arkansas, at Texas Tech
– UTSA: at Arizona, Kansas State, at Oklahoma State
– Western Michigan: Michigan State, at Ohio State
– WKU: at Vanderbilt, at Indiana, at LSU

Step Three: The Group of Five champion’s conference can’t be awful

The Sun Belt, MAC and Conference USA conference races will all be entertaining, but there are just too many really, really mediocre teams in each of those three to give an unbeaten champion any honest shot of making the playoff. The Sun Belt doesn’t have a conference championship game, so no matter what, going along with the other problems and concerns, its champ will never, ever be ranked in the top four.

No, a MAC or Conference USA champ won’t come close, either.

However, a Boise State from the Mountain West or a UCF from the American Athletic – teams that have a proven track record on a high level – might be in the discussion if they tear it up.

So to keep this in the land of the real, out of the 41 teams that scheduled good enough non-conference games, 16 of them could be alive by going unbeaten: Boise State, Colorado State, East Carolina, Fresno State, Hawaii, Memphis, Nevada, San Diego State, San Jose State, SMU, Temple, Tulane, UCF, UNLV, USF and Utah State, but …

Step Four: There has to be chaos among the Power 5 champs

And lots of it. The playoff committee caught a massive break last season with all five Power 5 champions finishing with one loss or fewer, but things would’ve gotten screwy had a few of the conference title games – like Georgia Tech over Florida State or Missouri over Alabama – gone the other way. The Group of Fivers need at least two, two-loss – preferably three-loss – teams winning Power 5 championships. If four of the five champions from the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC finish unbeaten or with one loss, forget about it. No Group of Five champion has a chance unless other options have been exhausted.

Step Five: Captivate a nation

The beautiful part about the playoff committee is that it’s set up to be ruthlessly analytical. Facts are facts are facts, and if Team A is 9-0 against the 14th-best schedule in the nation, and Team B is 9-0 vs. the 67th-best schedule, the committee is going to rank Team A higher.

However, what if Navy ends up as the only unbeaten team in college football? What if 2015 Fiesta Bowl winner Boise State destroys Washington and blows away everything in its path? The committee and process does have the human element involved, and if a Group of Five champion is going to be in the hunt, there needs to be a story attached it – there has to be something about the team that demands inclusion into the exclusive club.

Even with all of that, it might not be enough considering there’s a massive gap between the haves and have-nots.

But there’s a chance.