The 2003 Navy Midshipmen football team leaving the field after their seventh win of the season, assuring them 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".
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 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 the 2016–17 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 lower FCS level.[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.
^"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.
Bowleligibility in college football at the NCAA Division I FBS level is the standard through which teams become available for selection to participate...
teams in college football, with strict bowleligibility requirements for teams to receive an invitation to a bowl game in a particular year; as of 1971...
2010–11 bowl season, then 80 participating teams by the 2015–16 bowl season. As a result, the NCAA has steadily relaxed the criteria for bowleligibility. Teams...
only use one win per season against an FCS team for the purposes of bowleligibility. Additionally, the FCS opponent must have averaged at least 80% of...
or both teams needing the win to earn bowleligibility. As of the announcement, Marshall was already bowleligible, but Virginia Tech needed two more wins...
place for those seasons. A win over an FCS team will count toward bowleligibility if the FCS team awards at least 80% of that subdivision's limit of...
which a conference champion does not meet eligibility requirements, they are usually still chosen for bowl games via tie-ins for their conference. Rankings...
(2002) Giambalvo, Emily (November 20, 2021). "Maryland, still seeking bowleligibility, is pounded by Michigan for third straight loss". Washington Post....
where a conference champion does not meet eligibility requirements, they are usually still chosen for bowl games with tie-ins for that conference champion...
clinch bowleligibility in the final week of the season. Old Dominion entered the Famous Toastery Bowl with a record of 6–6. 2023 Famous Toastery Bowl at...
16, 2023). "NCAA denies postseason eligibility waiver for James Madison, Dukes must hope for dearth of bowl-eligible teams". CBS Sports. Retrieved November...
self-imposed bowl ban for the 2020 season. Although the Tigers did not finish the season with six wins, the NCAA removed bowleligibility requirements...
NCAA had waived the five-win bowleligibility requirement for the season, and the Volunteers accepted a bid to the Liberty Bowl. However, the team had to...
games of the season to assure themselves of bowleligibility, though they would have still reached a bowl with a 5–7 record based on a high Academic Performance...
football team joined the Sun Belt in 2017, and full FBS membership and bowleligibility followed in 2018. March 1 – The Sun Belt Conference announced that...
them to clinch bowleligibility in the final week of the season, with a record of 6–6. This was Texas Tech's third Independence Bowl. The Red Raiders...
provisional FBS member in 2018, and became a full FBS member with bowleligibility in 2019. In 2020, Liberty entered the rankings in the AP Poll at 25...
two-year transition from the FCS to the FBS in 2018 and became fully bowl-eligible starting with the 2019 season. It remained an NCAA Division I FBS Independent...
1–5 in the final six games and missed bowleligibility without him. In the 2017 season opener at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, Rosen completed...
extra year of eligibility after the 1984 game. In 2013, two players (D. J. Fluker and Justin Pugh) with a year of college football eligibility remaining,...
16, 2023). "NCAA denies postseason eligibility waiver for James Madison, Dukes must hope for dearth of bowl-eligible teams". CBS Sports. Retrieved November...
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