This is the final chart, assuming that Pitt beats USF (they're up 27-0 in the 3rd).  We can assume CMU is history, so that leaves nine teams vying for eight available bowl slots.

Update: La-Monroe goes to the Independence Bowl.  Now eight teams for seven slots.

Update: San Jose St is in the Military Bowl vs. a MAC team, leaving seven teams and six slots.

Conference	Eligible	Out	Needing a Bowl	Open Slots?
ACC (8)	6	6		Military, Independence
Big 12 (7)	9	1	Iowa St (6-6)
Big East (6)	5	3		Liberty, Compass
Big Ten (8)	7	5		Pizza
CUSA (6)	5	7
MAC (3)	7	6	BSU (9-3) BG (8-4) Ohio (8-4) CMU (6-6)
MWC (5)	5	5
Pac 12 (7)	8	4
SEC (10)	9	5		Independence, Compass
Sun Belt (2)	5	5	MTSU (8-4) La-Monroe (8-4) WKU (7-5)
WAC (1)	3	4	San Jose St (10-2) LaTech (9-3)
Indies (3)	2	1		Military
BCS at large (4)	1 (ND)	0
Total (70)	72	52

The guide I use for this sort of thing -- ESPN -- doesn't have them listed as ineligible, like they do O$U, Penn St and UNC, along with the 7-loss teams.  Only UTSA (5-2) and Texas St (3-3) have a real chance to get bowl eligible.  Under the NCAA's new contingency plan, they're next to last on the list, just ahead of 5-7 teams.

This is correct. Although I still think they are eligible to win a conference title?

It was announced last week that the hearing on their appeal won't be held until late January; since their appeal is still pending, they'll be bowl eligible this season.  I think the NCAA was afraid they might have to let some 5-7 teams go to bowls, given that three AQ schools are also ineligible (O$U, Penn St and UNC).

Not likely.  There are already 40 teams eligible and another 34 likely to get eligible by mid-Nov, so that's at least 74 teams for 70 slots.  The Sun Belt and the WAC will likely have at least 2-3 teams over their commitments, so I think there's enough to do inter-conference matchups. 

For our 3 bowl tie ins there is a pecking order for the selection process, but how does that work for the extra bowl slots we may slide into? Is it possibe that our 3 best teams may not play in the 3 best bowls?

The latest CBSSports bowl projections has the MAC with 8 bowl teams but our best teams aren't necessarily matched up with our best opponents. For example, Fiami is matched with LaTech, I would want the MACC to play them as opposed to one of our 6-6 teams. Ohio is matched with La-La which I thought was bad until they beat up on ULM last night, but still, playing a team sponsored by Chili's isn't exactly a thrill.

I realize bowl projections this early are mostly meaningless but  I do hope our best teams get the best match ups regardless. Was also disappointed that all 8 projections were against non-AQs. 5 SunBelt, 2 WAC, and 1 CUSA. Having a 5 on 5 bowl-o-rama with the SunBelt is not very appealing.

If we get an invite to the Go-Daddy you owe it to yourself to make the trek to Mobile.

That was a great Bowl Experience up until Kick Off with Southern Miss(we kinda stubbed our toe).

Dauphne Street, the Mardi Gra's parade, and the overall hospitality was 2nd to none.

Having the room next to Kenny K. was a bit rough though........think it took me three days to sober up.

The teams with the best shot at getting in are Mizzou and WMU (they're at Buffalo next week and have EMU at home on the 17th).  Utah and Tennessee also have real shots.  I'd also expect at least one more each from the Big Least and CUSA.  I don't expect Fiami to get in.  They have Kent, CMU and BSU left; winning two of those three isn't easy, but not impossible. 

The transitional teams are next to last on the pecking order, so they come after any 6-6 teams even if their record is better.  Any 5-7 teams would be last.

OK, time to be a nerd again,  I took the simple predictive system that we described when we were discussing Sagarin a few weeks ago to come up with a point spread for all remaining games.  When we were discussing the ELO ratings I mentioned how to look at a teams chance of winning when they are favored or an underdog by X points.  Now I can take the predicted point spread to find the predicted odds of winning a game and add up the odds into a predicted number of wins.  I had to eliminate OSU, PSU, & UNC.  Pittsburgh and UTSA had 6 wins but short of the 7 and 8 that they need.  I got 64 eligible teams before invoking the rules of what to fill extra spots.  This is 6 short the total number of bowl spots.

Honestly, any school with 6 wins with no more than 1 over 1AA that isn't a transitional or on probation has a very good shot of getting to a bowl.  It isn't guaranteed that all will go but it looks probable to me.  Now, I am actually more disappointed that Miami lost than happy about it. (Am I allowed to even say that on this board?  Are my Bobcat credentials on probation and pending further review?)  I think I can say that because the odds of both Ohio and Miami winning out heading into the week we so small to make the Miami loss to Buffalo matter to Ohio winning the division were so small (I think over 500 to 1) that it wasn't really even worth worrying about.  Our future as far as the eye can see is probably tied to the MAC and MAC success is helpful to Ohio.  Eight schools in bowls would have been nice.

I looked on teamrankings.com and looked at the number of teams that he gave a 50% or better chance of being eliglibe.  He got 71.  I win totals were very similar.  I was just that the schools that I had at 6.0 or 6,1 wins he did as well and 6 of the teams that I had at 5-7 to 5.9 he had at 6.o or 6.1 as well

Under his 71 scenario the school with 6 wins that is staying home would almost certainly be Western Michigan.  The MAC would still be at 6 schools going to bowls.

Right you are, so I'm moving Pitt over one column.  The article and the NCAA press release on which it's based also say that UTSA would need only six wins; I'm not sure how they'd justify letting in a team with four wins vs. non-1A schools but keeping out a 5-7 team that might have five wins vs. 1-A schools.

Another fly in the ointment might be Fiami(FL) -- they're thinking about self-imposing a bowl ban for this season to ward off stricter penalties from the NCAA.  Guess they've learned from O$U's mistake.

ESPN has UTSA bowl eligible. I dont really understand why.

9-3 we are a lock for a bowl. 8-4 we're borderline and we'll have to sweat it out and hope for some other losses. Right now I'd say only 5 MAC teams go bowling.

We will probably end up with around 76 bowl eligible teams. We would get picked ahead of UTSA, a 6-6 Central team should they end up bowl eligible, and the extra Sun Belt teams which will put us right on the bubble. The final spots may come down to the 8-4 MAC team or a 6-6 BCS team like Iowa State. Also If both us and BGSU finish 8-4, BGSU could get selected ahead of us since they won the head to head matchup a la Ohio/Temple a few years ago. A win against BSU settles everything.

I'm thinking Military Bowl. They took a MAC team last year in Toledo and had a competitive game.