Week 14 of college football means that bowl season is right around the corner. With a select few teams still playing to keep their playoff hopes alive; there is also a healthy bunch out there who are hoping to get to get an extra game with one more win to become bowl eligible in this final week of the regular season.
To be “bowl eligible” a team must have six wins or a record of at least .500. There are currently 77 teams who sit at that mark.
This year there are 41 bowl games with 82 bids, including those that are a part of the 12 team College Football Playoff. That means that there are still five bowl game spots up for grabs.
Here are the teams by conference who currently sit at 5 wins and have a chance to gain bowl eligibility with a win in Week 14:
ACC
- North Carolina State; at North Carolina (6-5)
- Virginia; at Virginia Tech (5-6)
- Virginia Tech; vs Virginia (5-6)
Big 12
- Cincinnati; vs TCU (7-4)
- Kansas; at Baylor (7-4)
Big Ten
- Michigan State; vs Rutgers (6-6)
- Wisconsin; vs Minnesota (6-5)
SEC
- Auburn; at Alabama (8-3)
Pac-(1)2
- Oregon State; at Boise State (10-1)
AAC
- North Texas; at Temple (3-8)
MAC
- Eastern Michigan; at Western Michigan (5-6)
- Western Michigan; vs Eastern Michigan (5-6)
Mountain West
- New Mexico; at Hawaii (4-7)
Sun Belt
- Appalachian State; at Georgia Southern (7-4)
- Coastal Carolina; at Georgia State (3-8)
- UL-Monroe; vs Louisiana (9-2)
Now with two games featuring teams both on this list, (UVA/Va Tech and EMU/WMU) the number of bowl eligible teams is guaranteed to reach 79. If three more teams do not pull out a win to reach that magic number of 82, then bids will be awarded to teams who are 5-7 with the best Academic Progress Rates.
This has occurred in every season since 2020 with Minnesota most recently receiving a bid in 2023 at 5-7, but it should not be an issue this year.
On the other end, if more than 82 teams are bowl eligible, one of two things will happen:
Either teams, usually from the smaller conferences, will be left out of bowl games or an extra bowl game will magically be formed to accommodate all deserving teams. This happened in the 2021 season when the Frisco Football Classic was approved in early December to accommodate 84 eligible teams.
The 2024 bowl season kicks off on December 14th with the Cricket Celebration Bowl and concludes on January 4th with the Bahamas Bowl prior to the CFP final four and National Championship games.