Bowl eligibility

The term bowl eligible refers to any NCAA football team that is able to play in one of the 32 bowl games that are a part of the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division I-A) season. In order to be bowl eligible, a team must have at least six wins, including conference and out-of-conference games, and the team must not be on probation. The NCAA allows one victory per season over a Division I FCS (formerly I-AA) team to count toward an FBS team's bowl eligibility. This prevents teams from scheduling multiple games against FCS teams in an effort to pad their win total. The term 'bowl eligible' is usually only used when referring to those teams that are eligible to play in minor bowl games, and not to those team who are competing to play in one of the five BCS bowl games.

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.

On April 26, 2006, the NCAA announced that they were relaxing the rules for eligibility starting with the 2006 season, particularly in light of the new 12 game college football season. Now, teams with .500 records can qualify for bowl games if their conference has a contract with a bowl game. Also, teams with .500 records (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.[1]

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. In 2005, eight bowl eligible teams did not receive bowl bids, namely Louisiana Tech (7-4), Miami (OH) (7-4), Western Michigan (7-4), Northern Illinois (7-5), Bowling Green (6-5), Central Michigan (6-5), Louisiana-Lafayette (6-5) and New Mexico (6-5). In 2006, nine bowl eligible teams that all finished with 6-6 records did not receive bowl bids. They were Kansas, Pittsburgh, Arizona, Washington State, Kent State, Southern Methodist, Wyoming, Arkansas State, and Louisiana-Lafayette.