Welcome back sports fans. It looks like all 82 bowl spots are filled. We don’t know who is playing where yet, but we do know which teams will be selected. We are not considering the Celebration Bowl which features the champions of the two primary HBCU conferences the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and the South-Western Athletic Conference (SWAC), which is the only FCS conference that still has divisions and a conference championship game. South Carolina St took down Delaware St in FCS rivalry week to win the MEAC and they will face the winner of the SWAC championship between Jackson St from the Eastern Division and Prairie View from the Western Division.
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In this post, we decided to split the data into two tables for ease of reading. The first table is a ranking by conference on percent of teams making bowl games. The data shows different categories of win totals. For example, we can see that the Sun Belt has the highest percentage of bowl teams for the Group of 5 conferences, but in the detail, we can see the highest rate of 6-win teams. The second table lists every FBS team by conference (sorted in the same order as the first table) as either a bowl team or not. The numbers in parentheses indicate the total wins.
| Conference | 10+wins | 8-9 wins | 6-7 wins | bowl bound | missed bowl | % bowl |
| Indies | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Big Ten | 3 | 5 | 4 | 12 | 6 | 66.7% |
| ACC | 2 | 5 | 4 | 11 | 6 | 64.7% |
| Sun Belt | 1 | 2 | 6 | 9 | 5 | 64.3% |
| Big 12 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 10 | 6 | 62.5% |
| SEC | 6 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 6 | 62.5% |
| C-USA | 0 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 58.3% |
| Mtn West | 1 | 5 | 1 | 7 | 5 | 58.3% |
| American | 2 | 4 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 57.1% |
| Pac 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 50.0% |
| MAC | 0 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 38.5% |
| Total | 19 | 36 | 27 | 82 | 54 | 60.3% |
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You may be asking how can 60% of the teams be .500 or better? Let’s look at a couple of different numbers. The Core 4 (ACC, Big 12, Big TEN, SEC, and Notre Dame) had a combined record of 475-341 (.582) or a mean of 7.0 wins per team. If we add the Group of 5 (American, C-USA, MAC, Mtn West, Pac-12, Sun Belt, and UCONN), we get a combined 874-756 (.536) or 6.4 wins per team. The reason for the higher than .500 winning percentage is games played against the FCS. Although each year there are a few upsets, the winning percentage is above .900 raising the total. Those games count which means most FBS schools just need to go 5-6 the rest of the season to become bowl eligible. That doesn’t seem to be that monumental of a task (for most teams). Hope that made sense.
| Conference | Bowl Teams | Missed Bowl |
| Indies | Notre Dame (10), UCONN (9) | — |
| Big Ten | Indiana (12#), Ohio St (12#), Oregon (11), Southern Cal (9), Michigan (9), Iowa (8), Washington (8), Illinois (8), Minnesota (7), Nebraska (7), Northwestern (6), Penn St (6) | Rutgers (5), Wisconsin (4), Michigan St (4), Maryland (4), UCLA (3), Purdue (2) |
| ACC | Virginia (10#), Miami FL (10), Georgia Tech (9), Pittsburgh (8), SMU (8), Louisville (8), Wake Forest (8), Duke (7#), California (7), Clemson (7), NC St (7) | Florida St (5), Stanford (4), North Carolina (4), Virginia Tech (3), Syracuse (3), Boston College (2) |
| Sun Belt | James Madison (11#), Old Dominion (9), Troy (8#), Southern Miss (7), Arkansas St (6), Coastal Carolina (6), Ga Southern (6), Louisiana (6), Texas St (6) | Marshall (5), App St (5), South Alabama (4), ULM (3), Georgia St (1) |
| Big 12 | Texas Tech (11#), BYU (11#), Utah (10), Houston (9), Arizona (9), Arizona St (8), Iowa St (8), TCU (8), Cincinnati (7), Kansas St (6) | Baylor (5), Kansas (5), UCF (5), West Virginia (4), Colorado (3), Oklahoma St (1) |
| SEC | Georgia (11#), Mississippi (11), Texas A&M (11), Alabama (10#), Oklahoma (10), Vanderbilt (10), Texas (9), Missouri (8), Tennessee (8), LSU (7) | Kentucky (5), Auburn (5), Mississippi St (5), Florida (4), South Carolina (4), Arkansas (2) |
| C-USA | Kennesaw St (9#), Jacksonville St (9#), W Kentucky (8), LA Tech (7), Missouri St (7), FIU (7), Delaware (6) | Liberty (4), New Mexico St (4), Middle Tennessee (3), UTEP (2), Sam Houston (2) |
| Mtn West | UNLV (10#), New Mexico (9), San Diego St (9), Boise St (8#), Fresno St (8), Hawaii (8), Utah St (6) | Air Force (4), Wyoming (4), Nevada (3), San Jose St (3), Colorado St (2) |
| American | North Texas (11#), Tulane (10#), Navy (9*), South Florida (9), East Carolina (8), Memphis (8), Army (6*), UTSA (6) | Temple (5), Rice (5), FAU (4), UAB (4), Tulsa (4), Charlotte (1) |
| Pac 12 | Washington St (6) | Oregon St (2) |
| MAC | W Michigan (8#), Ohio (8), Toledo (8), Miami OH (7#), C Michigan (7) | Akron (5), Buffalo (5), Kent St (5), E Michigan (4), Ball St (4), Bowling Green (4), N Illinois (3), UMASS (0) |
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Note: the asterisks next to Army and Navy indicate that they still have a regular season game. The hashtag next to a total indicates a team playing in their conference championship. We’ll mention this again tomorrow in G’s Expectation, but Duke is in the ACC championship at 7-5 because of the 5th tiebreaker in ACC policy. There were 5 teams tied for second. The first rule is head-to-head if there are just two teams – did not apply. The next three rules applied to multiple ties, but only if all tied teams played each other. With 5 teams in a 17-team conference, that was all but impossible. The 5th rule is conference opponent’s win total – Duke won that.
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That’s it for today. We thank you for reading and sharing with others. Tune in tomorrow for the predictions for all 18 games tomorrow (conference championship games and round 2 of the FCS playoffs), JoJo and G.
