Bowl Bound

After thirteen weeks of football, and one more to go:

-70 teams are eligible to play in bowls

-46 teams are ineligible to play in bowls

-4 teams are on the bubble (Oregon State, Washington, Middle Tennessee State, Louisiana Tech)

Bowl tie-ins by conference:

ACC: 8 (9 eligible)

Big East: 6 (6 eligible)

Big Ten: 8 (8 eligible)

Big 12: 8 (8 eligible)

C-USA: 6 (6 eligible)

MAC: 3 (6 eligible)

MWC: 5 (5 eligible)

Pac-10: 6 (3 eligible)

SEC: 9 (10 eligible)

Sun Belt: 2 (2 eligible)

WAC: 4 (4 eligible)

Navy: Poinsettia Bowl (eligible)

Army: At-large (eligible)

Notre Dame: At-large (eligible)

There are enough bowl-eligible teams for all 70 bowl spots, with the possibility of 4 more bowl-eligible teams after this coming Saturday, December 4^th. Here are the games with teams playing for postseason eligibility:

Oregon State at home against No. 2 Oregon

Washington at Washington State

Middle Tennessee State at Florida International

Louisiana Tech at home against No. 17 Nevada

I don’t like to make predictions on this blog, but it is possible Washington might be the only school of the four bubble teams to get its sixth win based on the matchups. So I am thinking there will be 71 bowl-eligible teams for 70 slots. At the beginning of the season, I was worried there would not be enough bowl-eligible teams based on the number of upsets taken by FCS schools over FBS schools. If there are more than 70 bowl-eligible teams after next weekend, some teams will get left out. The most likely team to get the cold shoulder is 6-6 Western Michigan since the WAC and Sun Belt do not exceed their tie-ins.