Bowl eligibility

Current criteria

1. The team must have at least as many wins as overall losses. Wins against non-Division I teams do not count toward the number of wins.
2. No more than one win against a Football Championship Subdivision team may count toward that win total, and only if the FCS team has awarded at least 90% of the scholarships that FCS rules allowed it to award over the last two years. The requirement that the FCS team must have awarded 90% of its allowed scholarships may be waived if a "unique or catastrophic situation" prevented the FCS team from meeting that requirement.
3. A team that has a losing record only because it lost its conference championship game remains eligible for a bowl.

1. Teams which would have met the eligibility criteria if not for the fact that they had one win against an FCS team that did not meet the scholarship requirement and no waiver was granted.
2. Teams which played 13 games during the regular season and finished with a 6–7 record.
3. Teams in their second year of reclassification from FCS to FBS football.
4. Teams with at least 5 wins and no more than 7 losses, in order of their Academic Progress Rates.

Exceptions

History

• Bowl games that have a contract with a conference must select a team with at least seven wins if one is available.
• Any bowl berths that become eligible when a conference fails to meet its contracted tie-ins must first be filled by any eligible seven-win teams before any remaining FBS 6–6 teams can be accommodated.
• Additionally, conferences are not allowed to sign contingency agreements with bowl games that would allow 6–6 teams from their conferences to receive bowl berths at the expense of any potential team with seven or more wins. While this does not prevent conferences from signing contingency agreements that are triggered when a second conference is unable to provide enough eligible teams to fill all of its contracted berths, it does not allow a 6–6 team from the contingency conference access to a bowl game over a seven win team from a third conference.

2012 revised criteria

1. Teams finishing 6–6 with one win against a team from the lower Football Championship Subdivision , regardless of whether that FCS school meets NCAA scholarship requirements. Until now, an FCS win counted only if that opponent met the scholarship requirements—specifically, that school had to award at least 90% of the FCS maximum of 63 scholarship equivalents over a two-year period. As of the 2021 season, programs in three FCS conferences cannot meet the 90% requirement —the Ivy League, which prohibits all athletic scholarships; the Pioneer Football League, which does not currently award football scholarships; and the Northeast Conference, which limits football scholarships to 45 equivalents. In addition, Georgetown does not offer football scholarships despite playing in the Patriot League, a conference which has allowed football scholarships since 2013.
2. 6–6 teams with two wins over FCS schools.
3. Teams that finish 6–7 with loss number seven in their conference championship game.
4. 6–7 teams that normally play a 13-game schedule, such as Hawaii and their home opponents. The NCAA permits Hawaii and teams who play at Hawaii to play an additional game during the regular season to recoup their unusually high travel costs to and from the mainland.
5. FCS teams who are in the final year of the two-year FBS transition process, if they have at least a 6–6 record.
6. Finally, 5–7 teams that have a top-five Academic Progress Rate score. This was later adjusted to allow other 5–7 teams to be selected thereafter—in order of their APR.

2015–20 bowl seasons

2020–21 bowl season

• The NCAA waived eligibility requirements "to allow as many student-athletes as possible the opportunity to participate in bowl games this year." The Pac-12 Conference still required teams to have a.500 record to be considered.
• Fourteen existing bowls were cancelled, either due to either travel restrictions, availability of teams, general pandemic effects or no formal reason.
• The Fenway Bowl and LA Bowl postponed their debuts to the 2021–22 bowl season, with the Montgomery Bowl announced as a "substitute of the Fenway Bowl for this season only".
• Eighteen teams with non-losing records opted out of bowl consideration in advance of the final College Football Playoff rankings being released on December 20:
• * ACC: 6–5 Boston College Eagles football team|Boston College], 6–5 Pittsburgh Panthers football team|Pittsburgh] and 5–5 Virginia Cavaliers football team|Virginia]
• * SEC: 5–5 LSU Tigers football team|LSU], as part of a self-imposed one-year postseason ban due to NCAA rule violations
• * PAC-12: 2–2 2020 [Arizona State Sun Devils football team|Arizona State Sun Devils], 4–2 Stanford Cardinal football team|Stanford], 5–1 South Division champion USC Trojans football team|USC], 3–2 Utah Utes football team|Utah], and 3–1 North Division champion Washington Huskies football team|Washington]
• * MAC: six teams were opted out by the conference's reported decision to only allow top two teams to go to bowl games— 3–3 Central Michigan Chippewas football team|Central Michigan], 3–1 2020 [Kent State Golden Flashes football team|Kent State], 2–1 Miami RedHawks football team|Miami (OH)], 2–1 Ohio Bobcats football team|Ohio], 4–2 Toledo Rockets football team|Toledo] and 4–2 Western Michigan Broncos football team|Western Michigan].
• * Other "Group of Five" conferences: 5-2 Boise State Broncos football team|Boise State], 4–4 2020 [San Diego State Aztecs football team|San Diego State], 7–3 SMU Mustangs football team|SMU]

2021–present bowl seasons

Bowl teams with losing records