Bids to college bowl games


The teams that participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I [NCAA NCAA Division I|Division I Football Bowl Subdivision|Football Bowl Subdivision] earn the right to compete in a series of post-season games called bowl games. As of 2024, there are 42 bowl games, and all are contractually obligated to offer bids to specific conferences, a situation known as a "tie-in". The "top" six bowl games in the nation select their teams as part of the College Football Playoff, 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 the College Football Playoff National Championship. First round games are played at the home stadium of the highest seed.
Twelve schools are selected for the playoff. The top five conference champions in the CFP rankings receive automatic bids. No conference will have an automatic bid. A conference must have a minimum of eight members for its champion to be eligible for a guaranteed bid.

"New Year's Six" bowl games

The New Year's Six bowl games make up the CFP quarterfinals and semifinals.
GamesFirst game
Capital One Orange Bowl1935
Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic1937
Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential1902
Allstate Sugar Bowl1935
Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl1968
VRBO Fiesta Bowl1971

*The top Group of Five champion will be placed into one of the At-Large spots, if they are not selected to be in the CFP.

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 was 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

The bowls that are not part of the CFP have contractual ties to specific conferences. For the 2019–2020 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 have at least as many wins against FBS opponents as it has total losses in the regular season, except that a team may count one win against an FCS team that has given out at least 56.7 full scholarships per year over the past two years.
The exclusion of conference championship games was added after UCLA, which was the Pac-12 South representative in 2011, was 6–6 and lost the conference championship game that they participated only because of USC, which won the division that year, was on NCAA probation. The NCAA granted UCLA a waiver, and the exception appeared the following year, where the rule was used by Georgia Tech, the only eligible team among the three tied teams in the Coastal Division that was eligible for postseason because of NCAA probation, was also 6–6 and lost the conference championship game.)
If, as happened in 2015, there are more bowl game openings than eligible teams, then additional teams can become eligible. Teams are divided into four groups, which are added one at a time until there are enough teams to fill all of the bowls.The groups are:
  1. A team that does not have a "counted" win against an FCS team, but beat an FCS team that did not meet the 90% scholarship requirement, and would have been bowl eligible had that game counted.
  2. A team that plays 13 games in its regular season and has a 6–7 record, since six wins is normally bowl eligible.
  3. A team in the second year of an FCS to FBS transfer "probationary period" that would have been eligible had it been a full FBS member.
  4. If there are still bowl openings remaining, enough teams with 5–7 or 5–6 counted records to fill the remaining spots become eligible. These are taken in order of the teams' most recent four-year football Academic Progress Rates, with ties broken by their one-year football APRs, starting with the most recent and working backwards.
Note that, once all of the bowl bids have been accepted, should a team have to withdraw, the bowl's organizer may choose any team not serving a postseason ban to replace it, regardless of its record or APR. In 2024, when Marshall withdrew from the Independence Bowl, that bowl selected Louisiana Tech to replace it, even though its APR was among the lowest among 5–7 teams.

Records vs. selection order

The contracts specify that the respective bowl committees receive a certain choice of teams. The selection order lists shown below 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.
A committee may select one team over another due to geographical proximity, travel ability for the fanbase, or other factors. Bowls may choose 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 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, 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.

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 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

Guaranteed Bids:
Four Bids from the following:

Atlantic Coast Conference

NOTE: Selections made with schools, bowls, and conference office, no order of selection outside of NY6 bowls, then tier #1 bowls, then tier #2 bowls
Tier No. 1
Tier #2

Big 12 Conference

Big Ten Conference

Conference USA

Guaranteed Bowl Bid
C-USA will get 4 or 5 additional bowl bids from these 12 bowls :

Mid-American Conference

Guaranteed Bowl Bid:
2 Bids from the following:

Mountain West Conference

The Mountain West Conference will also have a sixth bowl tie-in with an ESPN Events operated bowl game.
As secondary if the listed conferences cannot provide a bowl-eligible team

Pac-12 Conference

Despite losing 10 members in July 2024, for 2024 and 2025 the Pac-12 retained its contractual bowl assignments. Teams previously in the Pac-12 were selected for these games.
Guaranteed Bids:

Southeastern Conference

Tier No. 1:
Conference, in consultation with bowls and schools, assign teams to the following six bowls:
Tier #2

Sun Belt Conference

Guaranteed Bids:
3 Bids from the following:

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.Notre Dame – eligible for ACC-contracted bowls. However, Notre Dame cannot be selected by an ACC bowl if there is an eligible ACC team with two or more wins than Notre Dame. For example, a 9–3 Clemson team must be chosen over a 7–5 Notre Dame team. Notre Dame was selected to the 2019 Camping World Bowl in lieu of the 3rd-place ACC team, the third time since 2014 they have taken an ACC slot. Notre Dame can also be selected to play against ACC teams in the Orange Bowl twice in the span from 20142025, and has no limit in playing in any other New Year's Six bowls if selected. In 2022, Notre Dame was selected to the Gator Bowl.

Division I FCS

For the only bowl game in the Football Championship Subdivision, the Celebration Bowl, the Southwestern Athletic Conference and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference both have tie-ins. Each conference must send their champion to the game.

Division II

Lone Star Conference

The Lone Star Conference has tie-ins to two bowls: a mandatory tie-in with the C.H.A.M.P.S. Heart of Texas Bowl and optional slots in the Live United Bowl and Corsicana Bowl.

Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association

The Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association has tie-ins to three bowls:
  1. Mineral Water Bowl: The MIAA must send its highest-ranked team not in the Division II tournament.
  2. Live United Bowl: The MIAA is one of two conferences from which the bowl can draw its at-large team.
  3. Corsicana Bowl: The MIAA is one of three conferences from which the bowl can draw its teams.

Great American Conference

The Great American Conference has two tie-ins:
  1. Live United Bowl: The GAC must send its highest-ranked team not in the Division II tournament.
  2. Corsicana Bowl: The GAC is one of three conferences from which the bowl can draw its teams.

Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference

The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference has a tie-in with the Mineral Water Bowl and sends the highest-ranking team not in the tournament.