Has any team in NCAA ever gone to a bowl at 6-6 without beating a team with a winning record?

Kent 1-7
E. IL. 3-5
Idaho 1-7
Akron 4-4
Buffalo 3-5
Fiami 2-7

14-35 combined is pretty impressive, should be 2-300 fans at the bowl game.

Believe it or not, the first one I looked at from last year was Rutgers. Their six wins were Norfolk St (3-9), EMU (2-10), Arkansas (3-9), SMU (5-7), Temps (2-10) and USF (2-10); a combined 17-55, a .236 percentage -- in Knorr territory (11-35, .239). Makes our opponents' .286 look impressive. They lost to ND in the Pinstripe Bowl, 29-16.

Just purely my observation/opinion but it seems like if you are from a P5 and go at least 6-6 you are going to a bowl game. Some of the bowls we have been able to play in were a result of another conference not having enough teams to fill their tie-in slots if I am not mistaken. I think UCLA even got a waiver a few years ago because they finished the regular season below the .500 mark with a loss in the PAC 12 Championship Game.

While it could be debated whether or not an average team with a .500 record deserves a bowl game, the games are a business of sorts and selling tickets, merchandise, etc. are a big part of it. Toss in the impact to the local economy of the host community-hotels, restaurants etc. and it adds up. Fan enthu$ia$m is usually more important than anything if and when the team meets the minimum requirements.

A 6-6 Iowa State or 7-5 Minnesota will probably bring more fans than any MAC school in most cases.

As I recall, Army and Navy have to win six by the first weekend in December (when the conference championships are played) in order to be bowl eligible because the Army-Navy game is the weekend after bowl bids are announced (this year, bids come out Dec 6 and the game is Dec 13). If that's the case, Army will not be bowl eligible this year because they already have six losses and at best they'll be 5-6 when bids come out. I think either MWC or CUSA is the primary backup if Army can't get in, but that might affect other openings for the MAC.

Navy at 4-5 also might not get to eligibility in time. They have Ga Southern (7-2) and South Bama (5-3) coming up. I think they have to win both.

Go Navy!

The MAC has met their quota as of last night (5) and now everyone else is just cream cheese.

I think Ohio gets in one if it gets to six wins. The first five primary bids are accounted for with bowl-eligible MAC teams but I'm almost sure one, if not two, of the secondary bowls will have spots open for the MAC. I doubt any of the other MAC schools get more than six wins. So, win 2 of final 3 and I think Ohio will have a spot. But I'm far from certain Ohio will do that. Lose tonight and I'd say highly unlikely. Win and I'd say there's a very good chance.

It won't be easy for Navy. They will beat Army, but Ga Southern and S. Alabama are no pushovers. The Jaguars gave Navy a good game last year in Annapolis. I still think they win one of those.

Oh yeah! I forgot that BOTH buffalo and ball state played 2 FCS teams. Buffalo beat 2 FCS teams. Since only one of those victories count for bowl eligibility, they would have had to win 7 total games (which they are now unable to do). Ball State, however, only beat 1 FCS team (they beat Colgate and lost to Indiana State). If I remember the rules correctly, they only need 6 wins (1 FCS win + 5 FBS wins), which means that they still have a small theoretical chance of becoming bowl eligible. I don't think that they will do so, but there is still a chance

Akron could get to 7 wins. They finish with Kent, UMass and Buffalo. They aren't playing that well now so I doubt the win all 3. If we tie Akron at 6-6 we get the nod because of better attendance as we did over Toledo last year. We beat them during the season.

I'm calling an Akron loss to UMass....as weird as it sounds, I really think we dodged a bullet missing UMass this year.

Looking for a diversion during the sloppy Memphis-Temps game tonight, so I totaled up the teams that are in, the teams likely to be in (not yet in but at .500 or above) and the other teams that are still alive (less than seven losses but under .500). With 38 bowls (not counting the national championship game), there are 76 bowl slots.

Coming into the weekend, tho, there are only 74 teams that are either in or likely to be in. That means at least two of the below .500 teams have to get bowl eligible so that all the slots are filled without dipping into the 5-7 teams. There are ten 4-5 teams in the "P"5 conferences and three in the G5s. I think the process to fill bowl slots that the NCAA came up with two years ago is still in place, so bowl eligible teams fill slots first (subject to back-up agreements) before 5-7 teams are taken.

6-6 might get us to a bowl, but 7-5 would improve our chances.

I'm doing a bit of probability calculations this morning with some predictive computer rankings. I get that 58 is the most probable number of teams with 7 or more wins. The most probable number of eligible teams is 77 with 78 just a hair more probable than 76.

This is a list of teams with a better than 50/50 chance of eligibility but with 6-6 being the most likely eligible record.

Texas-El Paso
Tennessee
Temple
Brigham Young
Penn State
Stanford
South Alabama
Texas State
North Carolina State
California
Rutgers
San Diego State
Akron
Ohio
Alabama-Birmingham
Virginia Tech
Western Kentucky
Texas
Michigan

It depends on what bowls with what contracts end up free but I'm guessing tht without looking at that part of it but with just looking at the way these things have worked in the past I'd think Ohio, Akron, Texas State and South Alabama are the most likely not to get picked. 6-6 would be putting your bowl chances on a razor's edge. We would be watching the last weekend hoping every 5-6 team loses.