Welcome back to a special edition of G’s Explanation. Each year I like to take some time to understand the postseason picture. The focus has been on the 12-team playoff or the 4-team playoff or the BCS Championship for a couple of decades but there have only been a precious few who have ever had the opportunity to participate in those scenarios. Every team is happy for post-season because it’s an extra few hours of practice that can help jump start next season – almost like an extra spring practice – and a reward for the months of hard work, pain, thrills, and the occasional heartache. It’s much easier for an FBS team to make the postseason with 82 of the 134 teams (61%) playing. The FCS is more selective with one bowl game for the best team from the MEAC and SWAC conferences and 24 teams in the playoffs. That’s 26 spots for 129 teams (20%).
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South Carolina St (9-2/137) was 5-0 in the MEAC and won the title outright to get their spot in the Celebration Bowl. They will face the winner of the SWAC conference championship game (Saturday 12/7 at 2:00 Eastern) between Southern (7-4/169) who won the West with a 6-1 mark (one game remaining this weekend) and Jackson St (10-2/125) who led the East with an 8-0 record. Congratulations to all 3 teams on a successful season.
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The field of 24 was announced earlier today. The format is each participating conference champion (based on regular season records) gets an automatic bid (Big Sky, Big South/Ohio Valley, Colonial, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Patriot, Pioneer, SoCon, Southland, and UAC). The other 14 spots and the overall seeding is determined by committee. The top 8 seeds get a first-round bye while seeds 9-16 host first-round games. The remaining 8 teams do not get seeds but are rather, in general, matched up with a semi-geographical opponent, though clearly not always, while avoiding 2 teams from the same conference facing each other in round one. In the table below, I show the 1-8 seeds in the first column, the corresponding 9-16 seeds in the second column (1 plays 16, 2 plays 15, etc.), and the visitors in round 1 with their respective opponents.
| First Round Bye | Conf | First Round Home Game | Conf | First Round Visitor | Conf |
| 1) Montana St (12-0/92) | Big Sky | 16) New Hampshire (8-4/165) | CAA | Tennessee Martin (8-4/160) | BSOV |
| 2) North Dakota St (10-2/147) | MVC | 15) Abilene Christian (8-4/167) | UAC | N Arizona (8-4/171) | Big Sky |
| 3) South Dakota St (10-2/119) | MVC | 14) Montana (8-4/164) | Big Sky | Tennessee St (9-3/152) | BSOV |
| 4) South Dakota (9-2/129) | MVC | 13) Tarleton (9-3/158) | UAC | Drake (8-2/148) | PFL |
| 5) UC Davis (10-2/141) | Big Sky | 12) Illinois St (9-3/153) | MVC | SEMO (9-3/152) | BSOV |
| 6) Incarnate Word (10-2/131) | SLAN | 11) Villanova (9-3/161) | CAA | E Kentucky (8-4/168) | UAC |
| 7) Mercer (10-2/128) | SoCon | 10) Rhode Island (10-2/144) | CAA | C Connecticut (7-5/181) | NEC |
| 8) Idaho (9-3/149) | Big Sky | 9) Richmond (10-2/133) | CAA | Lehigh (8-3/155) | PAT |
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By Conference, Big Sky has 5 teams, Colonial and Missouri Valley each have 4, Big South/Ohio Valley and UAC each have 3, and Northeast, Patriot, Pioneer, SoCon, and Southland all have a single team in the playoffs.
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Switching to the FBS, I am not ready to make guesses on the what the committee will do for the 12-team playoff top 25 thing on Tuesday. It is wonderful how much controversy and whining is happening when the expansion was supposed to resolve that (same thing happened from BCS to 4-team). Let’s talk about where we are on bowl games. There are 82 spots available. As of today we have 77 teams that have clinched eligibility (not necessarily a bowl). 41 have 7 or more losses and are out. 16 teams are sitting on 5 wins. Two games between 5-win teams (E Michigan @ W Michigan and Virginia @ Virginia Tech) put the maximum bowl-eligible teams at 91. Last time the number of teams exceeded the number of bowls, they added a bowl (there was only 1 extra team). It could be some 6-win teams will be on the sidelines in December. Here is the conference-by-conference breakdown. The first column is the conference with the percentage already eligible followed by the maximum percentage, the second is those teams already bowl-eligible, the third is those already eliminated, the fourth is those that need a win this weekend (and the team they have to beat). The data is sorted by percentage of teams eligible as of today.
| Conference (Pct/MPct) | Bowl Eligible | Eliminated | Possible |
| SEC (.813/.875) | Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt | Kentucky, Mississippi St | Auburn (@ Alabama) |
| Big Ten (.667/.778) | Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio St, Oregon, Penn St, Rutgers, Southern Cal, Washington | Maryland, Northwestern, Purdue, UCLA | Michigan St (Rutgers), Wisconsin (Minnesota) |
| Indies (.667/.667) | Notre Dame, UCONN | UMASS | — |
| ACC (.647/.764) | Boston College, California, Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami FL, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, SMU, Syracuse | Florida St, Stanford, Wake Forest | NC St (@ North Carolina), Virginia @ Virginia Tech |
| Big 12 (.563/.688) | Arizona St, Baylor, BYU, Colorado, Iowa St, Kansas St, TCU, Texas Tech, West Virginia | Arizona, Houston, Oklahoma St, UCF, Utah | Cincinnati (TCU), Kansas (@ Baylor) |
| Pac 12 (.500/1.000) | Washington St | — | Oregon St (@ Boise St) |
| Sun Belt (.500/.714) | Arkansas St, Ga Southern, James Madison, Louisiana, Marshall, South Alabama, Texas St | Georgia St, Old Dominion, Southern Miss, Troy | App St (@ Ga Southern), Coastal Carolina (@ Georgia St), ULM (Louisiana) |
| MAC (.500/.583) | Bowling Green, Buffalo, Miami OH, N Illinois, Ohio, Toledo | Akron, Ball St, C Michigan, Kent St | E Michigan @ W Michigan |
| AAC (.500/.571) | Army, East Carolina, Memphis, Navy, South Florida, Tulane, UTSA | Charlotte, FAU, Rice, Temple, Tulsa, UAB | North Texas (@ Temple) |
| Moutain West (.417/.500) | Boist St, Colorado St, Fresno St, San Jose St, UNLV | Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, San Diego St, Utah St, Wyoming | New Mexico (@ Hawaii) |
| C-USA (.400/.400) | Jacksonville St, Liberty, Sam Houston, W Kentucky | FIU, Kennesaw St, LA Tech, Middle Tennessee, New Mexico St, UTEP | — |
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That’s it for today. Watch for the final regular season G’s Expectation coming soon. Thank you as always for your support by reading and sharing with others, G.
