As the regular season in college football heads into its final weeks, let the speculation begin about BCS bowl assignments and then, how conference match-ups will fall into place.
For a team to be bowl eligible, it must win, @ least, 6 games in a 12 game schedule and 7, if a school elects to schedule a 13th game. A FBS team (Football Bowl Subdivision… 85 Scholarship Program) can count a victory over a FCS (Football Championship Subdivision…63 Scholarship Program), as one of their required six wins, but can do so only once. If a FBS program schedules two FCS teams and were to win both game… only one of these wins count toward the required six for post season participation. In other words, they would still need to beat five FBS teams to become bowl eligible.
There are 35 bowl games this year and thus 70 FBS teams, there are currently 120, need to have the required number of wins to fill these slots. With that in mind, lets take a look at each conference and get an idea of how many teams in each league have met their burden.
The ACC has 9 of their 12 teams (Maryland, Duke & Boston College are not eligible), the Big East has qualified four of their 8 teams and the other four teams are still hopeful, as they all have 5 wins with a game to play. Since Pitt & Syracuse play one another, only three of the teams have a shot at the required 6th win. The Big Ten has qualified 10 of their 12 teams, with only Minnesota and Indiana left out of the post season; while the Big 12, has 8 of their 10, only Texas Tech and Kansas will be left at the alter! The SEC has 9 of their 12 teams ready to roll into the bowling season, with only Kentucky, Tennessee, & Ole Miss left at home. The PAC 12 has qualified 8 of its 12 teams, but USC is not eligible due to NCAA infractions, they will have only seven teams representing the conference in the bowl season.
So the AQ conferences have qualified 47 of the needed 70 teams. Notre Dame has qualified (48) and 3 other teams from the Big East can qualify with a win on Saturday. Thus by the end of the week, the AQ conferences could provide as many as 51 teams to the 35 bowls.
The Non AQ Conferences; Conference USA, Western Athletic Conference, Mid American Conference, Mountain West Conference, Sun Belt and 3 Independents will need to provide the remaining 23 to 19 teams. Let’s see how many teams in those conferences are bowl eligible.
Of the 3 independents, only BYU has the required number of wins, neither Navy or Army will qualify this year. C-USA has 5 teams that have six or more wins, Houston, Southern Mississippi, Southern Methodist, Tulsa, & Marshall; while the WAC has Utah State, Nevada, & Louisiana Tech all with six or more wins. Hawaii has six wins… but they play a 13th game (BYU) and will need the 7th win given that schedule. The MAC has qualified 6 teams for post season play… their best showing in recent years. The MWC will add 5 teams to the mix, with Boise & TCU as their headliners. Finally, the Sun Belt has qualified 4 of their nine teams to the Non AQ total.
The Non AQ conferences will provide 24 or 25 teams (depending on how Hawaii does with BYU) to the needed total of 70.
Thus, AQ and Non AQ team total could be as high as 76 or as low as 73, in either result, the magic number of 70 will be met!
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