Bowl eligibility incollege football at theNCAA Division I FBS level is the standard through which teams become available for selection to participate in postseasonbowl games. When a team achieves this state, it is described as "bowl-eligible".
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 the2010–11 bowl season, then 80 participating teams by the2015–16 bowl season. As a result, the NCAA has steadily watered down the criteria for bowl eligibility in favor of higher profits, 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 the2016–17 bowl season, 25% of the bowl participants (20 teams) did not have a winning record.
Current regulations have also adjusted the criteria to allow a team to include one win against teams at the lowerFCS level.[1]
Teams that are bowl eligible will usually either play in one of the bowl games that its conference is affiliated with based onconference 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.
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]
No more than one win against aFootball Championship Subdivision (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 againstIvy League,Georgetown,Pioneer Football League, and someNortheast Conference teams 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]
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]
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]
Teams which played 13 games during the regular season and finished with a 6–7 record.[3]
Teams in their second year of reclassification from FCS to FBS football.[3]
Teams with at least 5 wins and no more than 7 losses, in order of theirAcademic Progress Rates (APRs).[3]
In mid-October 2020, during theCOVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA waived bowl eligibility requirements for the2020–21 bowl season, intended "to allow as many student-athletes as possible the opportunity to participate in bowl games this year."[4]
On April 26, 2006, the NCAA announced that they were relaxing the rules for eligibility starting with the2006–07 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 forHawaiʻi and any of its home opponents in a given season), a team must win seven games.[5]
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 fromGroup of Five conferences). Typically, teams with seven or more wins will not be left out of bowl games, although there are times, most recently the2012–13 bowl season, that see at least one such team uninvited. Before the2010–11 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:[6]
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 the2008–09 bowl season, these rules affected bowls contracted to theBig 12 andPac-10, which each had at least one more bowl slot than eligible teams. The same applies to bowls contracted to theSEC. However, in that season, theWAC had a contingency agreement with one of the Pac-10's bowls, specifically thePoinsettia Bowl, providing that the bowl would select a WAC team (ultimatelyBoise State) if the Pac-10 did not have enough teams to fulfill their bowl contracts. The same contingency agreement applied in that season to theSun Belt Conference and thePapaJohns.com,Independence, andSt. Petersburg bowls. Similarly, these rules affected bowls contracted to theACC in the2009–10 bowl season because that conference has nine bowl tie-ins, but only had seven eligible teams that season.
Starting with the2011–12 bowl season, the rule that required the selection of seven-win teams before any 6–6 teams was eliminated.[7] The first season of the new rule sawTemple go uninvited despite going 8–4, including a win over eventualBig EastBCS representativeConnecticut. In the 2010–11 bowl season, theUCLA 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 thePac-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.[8] 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.[9]
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 andGeorgia 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 the2011 Pac-12 South,North Carolina andMiami in the2012 ACC Coastal). Both lost in their conference championship games, but the NCAA awarded both waivers.[10] Starting with the2013–14 bowl season, this waiver is established by rule and all 6–6 teams participating in a conference championship game will be bowl eligible.[11]
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:[12]
Teams finishing 6–6 with one win against a team from the lowerFootball 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. As of the 2021 season, programs in three FCS conferences cannot meet the 90% requirement (56.7 equivalents)—theIvy League, which prohibits all athletic scholarships; thePioneer Football League, which does not currently award football scholarships; and theNortheast Conference, which limits football scholarships to 45 equivalents. In addition,Georgetown does not offer football scholarships despite playing in thePatriot League, a conference which has allowed football scholarships since 2013.
6–6 teams with two wins over FCS schools. (This provision was later removed in 2017.)[citation needed]
Teams that finish 6–7 with loss number seven in their conference championship game. (These teams received automatic waivers starting in 2014.)
6–7 teams that normally play a 13-game schedule, such asHawaii and their home opponents. The NCAA permits Hawaii and teams who play at Hawaii to play an additional game during the regular season to recoup their unusually high travel costs to and from themainland.[13][14]
FCS teams who are in the final year of the two-year FBS transition process, if they have at least a 6–6 record.
Finally, 5–7 teams that have a top-fiveAcademic Progress Rate (APR) score. This was later adjusted to allow other 5–7 teams to be selected thereafter—in order of their APR.[12]
The2017–18 bowl season featured 39 bowl games due to the discontinuation of thePoinsettia 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.
The2018–19 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.
TheNCAA waived eligibility requirements "to allow as many student-athletes as possible the opportunity to participate in bowl games this year."[4] ThePac-12 Conference still required teams to have a .500 record to be considered.[18]
TheFenway Bowl andLA Bowl postponed their debuts to the 2021–22 bowl season, with theMontgomery Bowl announced as a "substitute of the Fenway Bowl for this season only".[19]
Eighteen teams with non-losing records opted out of bowl consideration in advance of the final College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings being released on December 20:
The2021–22 bowl season featured 44 bowl games with everything largely back to normal after the turmoil of the previous season due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.Hawaii were the only team with a losing record, 6–7, selected. They were paired against the 6–6Memphis Tigers in the2021 Hawaii Bowl, but ultimately withdrew due to COVID-19 concerns. 17 teams with a 6–6 record were invited and accepted into bowl games. In addition, after initial bowl selections had been made, 5–7Rutgers replaced 8–4Texas A&M in theDecember 2021 Gator Bowl after positive COVID-19 tests within the Texas A&M program. Rutgers became the only team with a losing record to play a bowl game that season, losing toWake Forest.
^ Hawaii, with a losing record of 2–5, also won the Poi Bowl for the 1936 season. The University of Hawaii website does not count that win as an official bowl victory as their competition consisted of local Honolulu All-Stars.
† Denotes a team that had a 6–6 regular season record, then lost their conference's championship game before playing in a bowl game.
% In 2021, the Hawaii Bowl was canceled due to Hawaii's withdrawal, which was due to injuries and COVID-19 issues within the team.[57]
& In 2021,Texas A&M (8–4) withdrew from the Gator Bowl due to an insufficient number of players being available.[58] The NCAA announced that Rutgers, having the highestAcademic Progress Rate (APR) of five-win teams, was the first eligible replacement team—Rutgers accepted the bid.[48]
