Bowl eligibility

Bowl eligibility in college football at the NCAA Division I FBS level is the standard through which teams become available for selection to participate in postseason bowl games. When a team achieves this state, it is described as "bowl-eligible".

The 2003 Navy Midshipmen football team leaving the field after their seventh win of the season, assuring them bowl eligibility.

For nearly a century, bowl games were the purview of only the very best teams, but a steady proliferation of new bowl games required 70 participating teams by the 2010–11 bowl season, then 80 participating teams by the 2015–16 bowl season. As a result, the NCAA has steadily reduced the criteria for bowl eligibility, allowing teams with a non-winning (6–6) record in 2010, further reducing to allow teams with outright losing records (5–7) to be invited by 2012. For the 2016–17 bowl season, 25% of the bowl participants (20 teams) did not have a winning record.

Current regulations have also lowered the criteria to allow a team to include one win against teams in the lower FCS Division.[1]

Teams that are bowl eligible will usually either play in one of the bowl games that its conference is affiliated with based on conference tie-ins or the team will be chosen from the pool of remaining bowl eligible teams to fill one of the at-large positions. The various reductions in the bowl eligibility criteria are discussed below.

Current criteria

For the 2018–19 bowl season, a team must meet the following criteria to participate in a bowl game:

  1. The team must have at least as many wins as overall losses. Wins against non-Division I teams do not count toward the number of wins.[2]
  2. No more than one win against an FCS team may count toward that win total, and only if the FCS team has awarded at least 90% of the scholarships that FCS rules allowed it to award over the last two years.[2] (Currently, that means that wins against Ivy League, Pioneer Football League, and Northeast Conference teams and Georgetown do not count.) The requirement that the FCS team must have awarded 90% of its allowed scholarships may be waived if a "unique or catastrophic situation" prevented the FCS team from meeting that requirement.[2]
  3. A team that has a losing record only because it lost its conference championship game remains eligible for a bowl.[2]

If there are not enough eligible teams to fill all the bowl slots, additional teams may be selected, according to the following priorities, which must be applied in descending order:[2]

  1. Teams which would have met the eligibility criteria if not for the fact that they had one win against an FCS team that did not meet the scholarship requirement and no waiver was granted.[3]
  2. Teams which played 13 games during the regular season and finished with a 6–7 record.[3] (This criterion normally applies only to Hawaii and some of its home opponents.)
  3. Teams in their second year of reclassification from FCS to FBS football.[3]
  4. Teams with at least 5 wins and no more than 7 losses, in order of their Academic Progress Rates.[3]

History

On April 26, 2006, the NCAA announced that they were relaxing the rules for eligibility starting with the 2006–07 bowl season, particularly in light of the new twelve-game college football season. Now, teams with a minimum non-losing, or .500, record can qualify for bowl games if their conference has a contract with a bowl game. Also, other teams with a minimum non-losing .500 record (i.e., 6–6) could earn bowl bids if all other FBS teams with winning records have been taken and postseason spots still remain vacant. In thirteen-game seasons (used because of conference championship games, or allowable for Hawaiʻi and any of its home opponents in a given season), a team must win seven games.[4]

Occasionally, there will be more bowl eligible teams than there are spots in the NCAA football bowl games in the season. In these cases, some bowl eligible teams will not be invited to play in any NCAA football bowl game (usually teams from Group of Five conferences). Typically, teams with seven or more wins will not be left out of bowl games, although there are times, most recently the 2012–13 bowl season, that see at least one such team uninvited. Before the 2010–11 bowl season, the Division I rulebook, specifically Bylaw 30.9.2.1, had several provisions that attempted to ensure that teams with seven wins will receive preference for bowl bids:[5]

  • Bowl games that have a contract with a conference must select a team with at least seven wins if one is available.
  • Any bowl berths that become eligible when a conference fails to meet its contracted tie-ins must first be filled by any eligible seven-win teams before any remaining FBS 6–6 teams can be accommodated.
  • Additionally, conferences are not allowed to sign contingency agreements with bowl games that would allow 6–6 teams from their conferences to receive bowl berths at the expense of any potential team with seven or more wins. While this does not prevent conferences from signing contingency agreements that are triggered when a second conference is unable to provide enough eligible teams to fill all of its contracted berths, it does not allow a 6–6 team from the contingency conference access to a bowl game over a seven win team from a third conference.

In the 2008–09 bowl season, these rules affected bowls contracted to the Big 12 and Pac-10, which each had at least one more bowl slot than eligible teams. The same applies to bowls contracted to the SEC. However, in that season, the WAC had a contingency agreement with one of the Pac-10's bowls, specifically the Poinsettia Bowl, providing that the bowl would select a WAC team (ultimately Boise State) if the Pac-10 did not have enough teams to fulfill their bowl contracts. The same contingency agreement applied in that season to the Sun Belt Conference and the PapaJohns.com, Independence, and St. Petersburg bowls. Similarly, these rules affected bowls contracted to the ACC in the 2009–10 bowl season because that conference has nine bowl tie-ins, but only had seven eligible teams that season.

Starting with the 2011–12 bowl season, the rule that required the selection of seven-win teams before any 6–6 teams was eliminated.[6] The first season of the new rule saw Temple go uninvited despite going 8–4, including a win over eventual Big East BCS representative Connecticut. In the 2010–11 bowl season, the UCLA Bruins were invited to a bowl game despite a losing record after playing a conference championship game (6–6 in regular season, played and lost the Pac-12 championship game in extenuating circumstances), while a 7–5 winning team (Western Kentucky) and a 6–6 non-losing team (Ball State) did not receive invites.

Like NCAA sports where a tournament determines an automatic conference bid to the postseason tournament, a team can finish with a losing record (or a winning record but not eligible because of FCS wins) and still appear in a bowl game. In another change to bowl eligibility rules that took effect in 2010–11, a team that wins its conference but has an overall losing record must receive an NCAA waiver to appear in a bowl game.[7] Previously, the waiver required no NCAA action. The new rule is still largely consistent with the NCAA rules in all other team sports, where a team that has a losing record that wins their conference championship through the conference tournament earns the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.[8]

The NCAA typically awarded waivers in extenuating circumstances when a 6–6 team played in a conference championship game as a result of the division winning team being ineligible because of sanctions. This prevents the conference championship game from affecting bowl eligibility of team that advances to the conference championship in case of division-winning teams being sanctioned. The Pac-12 and ACC have both used it for such division champions, UCLA in 2011 and Georgia Tech in 2012, both of which were 6–6 and advanced to the conference championship game as a result of sanctions to the division winning teams (USC in the 2011 Pac-12 South, North Carolina and Miami in the 2012 ACC Coastal). Both lost in their conference championship games, but the NCAA awarded both waivers.[9]

Starting with the 2013–14 bowl season, this waiver is established by rule and all 6–6 teams participating in a conference championship game will be bowl eligible.[10]

On August 2, 2012, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved a significant change to the process to determine bowl eligible teams, going so far as to potentially allow 5–7 teams to go to a bowl, in case there were not enough regular bowl-eligible teams to fill every game. If a bowl has one or more conferences/teams unable to meet their contractual commitments and there are no available bowl-eligible teams, the open spots can be filled – by the particular bowl's sponsoring agencies – as follows:[11]

  1. Teams finishing 6–6 with one win against a team from the lower Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), regardless of whether that FCS school meets NCAA scholarship requirements. Until now, an FCS win counted only if that opponent met the scholarship requirements—specifically, that school had to award at least 90% of the FCS maximum of 63 scholarship equivalents over a two-year period. In the 2012 season, programs in four FCS conferences cannot meet the 90% requirement (56.7 equivalents)—the Ivy League, which prohibits all athletic scholarships; the Pioneer Football League and Georgetown, which do not currently award football scholarships; and the Northeast Conference, which limits football scholarships to 38 equivalents.
  2. 6–6 teams with two wins over FCS schools.
  3. Teams that finish 6–7 with loss number seven in their conference championship game (that has been eliminated by the conference championship waiver rule).
  4. 6–7 teams that normally play a 13-game schedule, such as Hawaii and their home opponents. The NCAA permits Hawaii to play an additional game during the regular season to recoup its unusually high travel costs to and from the mainland.[12] The team's opponents who play at Hawaii each season are also allowed one more game than their normal limit.[13]
  5. FCS teams who are in the final year of the two-year FBS transition process, if they have at least a 6–6 record.
  6. Finally, 5–7 teams that have a top-five Academic Progress Rate (APR) score. This was later adjusted to allow other 5–7 teams to be selected thereafter—in order of their APR.[11]

The 2015–16 bowl season featured a record 40 bowl games, and three teams with losing records (San Jose State, Minnesota, and Nebraska; each 5–7).[14] Despite this, the Arizona Bowl was unable to fill teams via its Conference USA or alternate Sun Belt Conference tie-ins, leading to both teams being from the Mountain West Conference, marking the first time since the 1979 Orange Bowl that a non-championship bowl game was played between members of the same conference.[15]

The 2016–17 bowl season again featured 40 bowl games, and three teams with losing records (6–7 Hawaii, 5–7 Mississippi State, and 5–7 North Texas). The 2017–18 bowl season featured 39 bowl games due to the discontinuation of the Poinsettia Bowl, with all bowl slots filled by teams with winning or .500 records; UTSA at 6–5 did not receive a bowl bid, while 15 teams with 6–6 records were selected. The 2018–19 bowl season again filled all slots for 39 bowl games with teams having winning or .500 records. One team with a winning record, Southern Miss at 6–5, did not receive a bowl invitation, while there were 10 teams with 6–6 records selected.

Bowl teams with losing records

The following teams entered bowl games with losing records.

Season Team Record Win Pct. Bowl game Result Ref.
1945 South Carolina 2–3–3 .438 1946 Gator Bowl L, 26–14 [16]
1963 SMU 4–6 .400 1963 Sun Bowl L, 21–14 [16]
1970 William & Mary 5–6 .455 1970 Tangerine Bowl L, 40–12 [16]
2001 North Texas 5–6 .455 2001 New Orleans Bowl L, 45–20 [16]
2011 UCLA 6–7 .462 2011 Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl (December) L, 20–14 [16]
2012 Georgia Tech 6–7 .462 2012 Sun Bowl W, 21–7 [17]
2014 Fresno State 6–7 .462 2014 Hawaii Bowl L, 30–6 [18]
2015 Nebraska 5–7 .417 2015 Foster Farms Bowl W, 37–29 [19]
Minnesota 5–7 .417 2015 Quick Lane Bowl W, 21–14 [19]
San Jose State 5–7 .417 2015 Cure Bowl W, 27–16 [19]
2016 Hawaii 6–7 .462 2016 Hawaii Bowl W, 52–35 [20]
Mississippi State 5–7 .417 2016 St. Petersburg Bowl W, 17–16 [20]
North Texas 5–7 .417 2016 Heart of Dallas Bowl L, 38–31 (OT) [20]

Denotes a team that had a 6–6 regular season record, then lost their conference's championship game before playing in a bowl game.

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See also
  • Automatic bids to college bowl games

References
  1. "Bylaw 18.7.2.2.1 Exception – Football Championship Subdivision Opponent" (PDF). 2010–11 NCAA Division I Manual. National Collegiate Athletic Association. p. 316. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
  2. 2018-19 NCAA Division I Manual (PDF). Indianapolis: National Collegiate Athletic Association. 2018. p. 332. Retrieved 2018-10-20.
  3. 2018-19 NCAA Division I Manual (PDF). Indianapolis: National Collegiate Athletic Association. 2018. p. 333. Retrieved 2018-10-20.
  4. ESPN - NCAA approves 31 bowl games for 2006 - College Football at sports.espn.go.com
  5. "Bylaw 30.9.2.1 Exception – 12 Game Season" (PDF). 2009–10 NCAA Division I Manual. National Collegiate Athletic Association. pp. 354–55. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
  6. "Bylaw 18.7.2 Postseason Football Championship and Postseason Bowl Licensing" (PDF). 2010–11 NCAA Division I Manual. National Collegiate Athletic Association. pp. 316–17. Retrieved 2010-11-28. Note that there is no provision in this rule that gives any preference to teams with seven or more wins over 6–6 teams.
  7. "Bylaw 18.7.2.2.2 Waiver for Conference Champion" (PDF). 2010–11 NCAA Division I Manual. National Collegiate Athletic Association. p. 316. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
  8. "Bylaw 31.3 Selection of Teams and Individuals for Championships Participation" (PDF). 2010–11 NCAA Division I Manual. National Collegiate Athletic Association. pp. 391–94. Retrieved 2010-11-28. See especially Bylaws 31.3.4 and 31.3.4.1.
  9. "Losing record? UCLA still wants a bowl".
  10. Hosick, Michelle Brutlag (May 2, 2013). "DI Board recognizes new conference, changes bowl qualification - NCAA.org". NCAA. Archived from the original on May 4, 2013.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  11. Johnson, Greg. "DI Board approves process to fill football bowls in case of shortfall". Archived from the original on 2012-08-03. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  12. "Bylaw 17.27.2 Alaska/Hawaii, Additional Football Contest" (PDF). 2011–12 NCAA Division I Manual. NCAA. p. 305. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  13. "Bylaw 17.9.5.2 (j) Annual Exemptions: Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico. (FBS/FCS)" (PDF). 2011–12 NCAA Division I Manual. NCAA. p. 264. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  14. "Forde-Yard Dash: Bowl edition".
  15. "Commissioner calls bowl matchup of two MWC teams 'a travesty'". ESPN.com. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  16. "College Football Teams Which Played in Bowl Games Despite Losing Records". thesportsseer.com. December 30, 2013. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  17. McMurphy, Brett (November 30, 2012). "Georgia Tech receives bowl waiver". ESPN. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  18. Verdejo Jr., Angel (December 7, 2014). "Rice to meet Fresno State in Hawaii Bowl". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  19. "Nebraska, Minnesota, San Jose St. taking 5-7 records to bowl". NCAA.com. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
  20. "Sub-.500 bowl teams now becoming almost routine". USA Today. AP. December 5, 2016. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
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