Automatic bids to college bowl games

This article is about the contracted bowl tie-ins. For the actual teams selected, see 2015–16 NCAA football bowl games.

The teams that participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision earn the right to compete in a series of post-season games called bowl games. As of 2015, there are 40 bowl games (not counting National Championship Game), and all are contractually obligated to offer bids to specific conferences, a situation known as a "tie-in". The "top" six bowl games ("New Year's Six") in the nation select their teams as part of the College Football Playoff (CFP), which was put into place for a minimum of 12 years, beginning with the 2014 season. Prior to 2014, the top five games in the country were chosen under the system known as the Bowl Championship Series. The bowls outside of the CFP, have individual contracts with the conferences to offer preferential bids to teams from those conferences. As long as teams are bowl eligible, they may be selected by these bowls to meet these contracts.

College Football Playoff

The College Football Playoff consists of seven bowls: the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, and College Football Championship Game. For the 2014-15 season, the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl will serve as national semifinals for the 2015 College Football Championship Game in Arlington, Texas, meaning that the teams ranked #1 through #4 in the College Football playoff rankings will play in those two bowls, with the winner advancing to the national championship.

Twelve schools are selected for the major bowls. These include the champions of the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big Ten Conference, Big 12 Conference, Pac-12 Conference and Southeastern Conference. The highest-ranked champion from the "Group of Five" conferences (American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt) is guaranteed a berth if the group's top team is not in the playoff.

The following tie-ins exist for bowls in the years they are not hosting the national semifinals:

2015 "New Year's Six" bowl games

Games First Game Conference Conference
Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual 1902 Pac-12 Big Ten
Allstate Sugar Bowl 1935 Big 12 SEC
Capital One Orange Bowl 1935 National semifinal National semifinal
Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic 1937 National semifinal National semifinal
Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl 1968 At-Large At-Large
BattleFrog Fiesta Bowl 1971 "Group of Five" At-Large
College Football Championship Game 2015 Orange/Rose/Fiesta Bowl Winner* Cotton/Sugar/Peach Bowl Winner*

Bowl Championship Series

From 1998 to 2013, the national champion was determined on the field by the Bowl Championship Series. The Bowl Championship Series consisted of five games, the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, and Sugar Bowl, as well as the BCS Championship Game. A composite system of computer rankings and human polls is used to rank the teams in the Division I–Football Bowl Subdivision. As with the College Football Playoff, the BCS consisted the champions of major conferences, at-large teams, and occasionally Notre Dame or teams from mid-major conferences. Consideration was given to historic associations between the conferences and the bowl games themselves. Tie-ins still apply, unless a team obligated to a certain bowl game is selected for the BCS Championship Game.

Other Bowl Games in 2014

The bowls that are not part of the CFP have contractual ties to specific conferences. For the 2014-15 bowl season, all bowls have at least two tie-ins, meaning that there are no at-large spots open in these bowls, assuming that all conferences produce enough bowl eligible teams. Many bowls also have contingency contracts to offer spots to other specific conferences should their first choice not be eligible. If any slot cannot be filled by a contracted conference at all, then the spot becomes open, and the bowl can offer the slot to any eligible team.

To be eligible, a team must not have a losing record in the FBS. If a school plays 12 games, they must have at least six wins to qualify. If a school plays 13 games, they must then have at least seven wins to qualify. A rule change for 2010 allows bowls to tender a bid to any team with a 6-6 record before teams with more than six wins. Previously, a bowl with an at-large bid to fill was required to select the remaining team with the best record over a 6-6 team that would have been more financially attractive in terms of bringing more fans to the respective bowl.

Records vs. selection order

The contracts specify that the respective bowl committees receive a certain choice of teams. It should be noted that the selection order lists show below (#1, #2, #3, etc.) indicate only the order in which the respective bowl committees make their selections. The choices are typically not predicated on end-of-season rankings or actually final regular season records/standings. For example, a bowl with the "# 3 pick" from a particular conference does not mean necessarily it has to select the "third place team" from that conference. When it becomes that committee's turn to pick, it may pick any of the remaining teams from that conference (with respect to the aforementioned eligibility rules detailed above).

A committee may select one team over another due to geographical proximity, travel ability for the fanbase, or other factors. Bowls may chose to "skip" teams in order to avoid regular season rematches, or perhaps bowl rematches from the previous season. In various cases, bowls have embraced a particular team(s) participating in same bowl in two consecutive seasons, but may shy away from inviting them for a third consecutive season. However, in most cases, the order loosely follows the general order of the regular season records/rankings.

Some conferences have special selection parameters written into their contracts with specific bowls — for example, the Citrus Bowl is contractually obligated to select the winningest Big Ten and SEC teams that do not make a CFP game (semifinal or New Year's Six Bowl), or a team within one win of the winningest in its conference. The MAC's bowl contracts require that both division champions, if eligible, receive bids to one of its five contracted bowls.

2015 Order of selection

Teams must be bowl-eligible to be selected for a bowl game. Should a conference not have enough eligible teams to meet their obligations, the bowls at the end of the selection process are free to choose a replacement team from among any remaining bowl-eligible teams that are not already committed to a bowl game. If a conference has multiple teams chosen for the CFP/New Year's Six games, the remaining bowls still select in the same order. For example, if two Pac-12 teams are in the CFP, the Alamo Bowl would then have the third (and not second) selection from the Pac-12, and all remaining bowls would also shift accordingly. This increases the likelihood that the conference will not be able to provide enough teams to meet its tie-in obligations.

American Athletic Conference

2015:

Atlantic Coast Conference

2015:

NOTE:

Tier #1

Tier #2 (selections still shared, order in place in case of insufficient number of bowl-eligible teams)

Conditional Secondary-Agreements

Big 12 Conference

2015:[1]

Big Ten Conference

2015:

NOTE: Bowls submit preferences to conference, and conference actually assigns schools to bowls. Other than the Rose Bowl, all Big Ten bowls have agreed to have at least five different schools in their bowl over the 2014-19 contract cycle.[2]

Tier #1

Tier #2

Tier #3

Conference USA

2015: Conference Champion picks bowl game to attend.

Conditional Secondary-Agreements

Mid-American Conference

2015:

Mountain West Conference

2015:

Conditional Secondary-Agreements

Pac-12 Conference

2015:

Southeastern Conference

2015:

Sun Belt Conference

2015:

Conditional Secondary-Agreements

The Arizona Bowl if either Mountain West or C-USA cannot fill their slots.

Division I FBS Independents

Of the independent Football Bowl Subdivision teams, there are contractual agreements to play in certain bowl games should they become bowl eligible. All of these teams are eligible to be selected for a New Year's Six bowl game before accepting any other contractual bids.

For 2015, the contractual obligations are the following:

The contractual obligations for Army and BYU are the following:

Army

BYU

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "Big 12 Announces Bowl Agreements". Big 12. 2013-12-13. Retrieved 2014-11-09.
  2. ↑ http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/big10/sports/m-footbl/auto_pdf/2014-15/misc_non_event/Bowl_Determination_Procedures.pdf
  3. ↑ http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/11199507/buffalo-wild-wings-bowl-changes-name-cactus-bowl
  4. ↑ http://www.sltrib.com/sports/2461211-155/byu-football-cougars-2015-bowl-destination
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