Tulane, UTSA favored to lead Group of Five in 2023.

For college football fans the summer months are a time to dive into preseason publications — at least the few that find their way to magazine shelves anymore — and look ahead to a new season that will arrive soon enough.

Those perusing top-25 lists might notice teams that were typically the highest-ranked among the Group of Five are absent from the 2023 rankings. Indeed, Cincinnati and UCF moved from the American to the Big 12.

While the names of the teams have changed, what has not changed is the American is home to the top-ranked Group of Five teams once again with Tulane (No. 22 Athlon, No. 25 Lindy’s) and UTSA (No. 23 Lindy’s) taking preseason honors. (ESPN’s post-spring rankings, released at the time Athlon and Lindy’s hit the shelves in late May, had Tulane No. 19 and UTSA No. 23.)

The Green Wave completed a 12-win season in 2022 by defeating UCF in the conference championship game and USC in the Cotton Bowl. Willie Fritz’s team checked in at No. 9 in the final AP poll after boasting the biggest turnaround in the FBS. Not bad for a team coming off a 2-10 season and was ranked anywhere from No. 65 to No. 85 in the preseason.

Winning 12 games once again is likely asking too much even in a watered-down American that more resembles the Conference USA Tulane left behind to join the AAC in 2014. After all, Michael Pratt will not be handing off to Tyjae Spears, who was a third-round pick of the Titans, and the defense took a hit with the top five tacklers having moved on.

However, winning, or at least playing for, another conference championship is not out of the question. After all, Pratt and three of his offensive linemen return and the defense, which will be under the direction of former Troy DC Shiel Wood, hardly resembles a bare cupboard.

A team Tulane could meet for conference supremacy the first Saturday in December, and perhaps with a New Year’s Six Bowl on the line, is Texas-San Antonio. If that happens, it would be the second meeting between the teams in as many weeks as the Green Wave hosts the Roadrunners on Thanksgiving weekend.

UTSA is among six programs that left C-USA in favor of joining the American. Jeff Traylor’s Roadrunners, who first took to the gridiron in 2011 under former Miami coach Larry Coker and joined the FBS in 2012, climbed as high as No. 15 in the AP poll in 2022. It was a season in which they went 11-3 and won their second straight conference title before losing to Troy in the Cure Bowl to snap a 10-game win streak.

With Frank Harris returning for a seventh season – at 24 he is older than Trevor Lawrence and the same age as Jalen Hurts — UTSA should not lose much of an edge offensively. While Zakhari Franklin (261 career receptions) transferred to Ole Miss to play for Lane Kiffin, Harris, who threw for 4,059 yards and 32 touchdowns last season, is not lacking top-flight targets in an offense guided by new coordinator Justin Burke, who was promoted after his former Louisville teammate, Will Stein, departed for Oregon.

A defense that was mostly middle of the pack nationally last season will have several returning starters and should be much better, especially with the continued development of young players such as redshirt sophomore linebacker Trey Moore.

Of course, other teams could and probably will be in the mix. Troy, for example, won a rugged and entertaining Sun Belt last year and could do so once again after finishing 2022 as the Group of Five’s second-highest ranked team (AP No. 19) behind Tulane.