We do not deserve a bowl bid!!  We should not accept a bid if offered.

We have to be  totally embarassed to be put into the same category of Kent State, NIU.

So please do not mention a Bowl Bid!!

The team, coaches and staff need to evaluate this season.  Sure injuries have been a big problem for the defense, but offensively we have gone from a better than average to a very poor offensive team.

Crazy thing is that we are likely going to a better bowl and playing a better opponent than the MAC Champs. If that isn't a whacked-out system, I don't know what is.

This team could legitimately be playing Baylor on New Year's Day inside the Cotton Bowl. That is a scary, scary proposition. Hide the kids!!!

Win OR lose to Kent, there's very little chance we miss out on a bowl. There's likely to be - at most - 71 or 72 teams eligible. Several will be 6-6 Sun Belt or WAC schools. Even as a reeling 8-4 team, we're bowl bound.

I know everyone is disappointed but don't forget that if you go to a bowl you get another month's worth of practice time. And this team definitely needs that at this point.

I'm sure it's happened but I can't name a team in the BCS era which having appeared in the BCS rankings was not invited to a bowl at the end of that season.  Lots of teams have finished poorly but the proliferation of bowls makes it very hard for a middlin' team to be left out.  We could be breaking new ground here.

When these selections are made a lot of the talk is about which team is "hot" or "on a roll".  We certainly aren't going to win those votes this year.

I was arguing against this earlier, but then I realized that the current system rewards BAD football teams with bowl games being awarded to nearly 60% of all FBS teams. (still dislike that acronym)

But here's something we must keep in mind. Yeah, they may talk about who's on a roll or not, but they also have to think of exposure. Even though we've floundered here as the season comes to an end, we gained a lot of attention this season by beating Penn State, being the 23rd ranked team in the country for a couple weeks, and from being in Sports Illustrated. Because we've generated that kind of buzz, we're still going to stand up better to bowl selection committees than a 6-6 Sun Belt team.  

Thanks for the info, but I was speaking of a bowl, not a bar.  Nice ability to take things out of context.  You could have a future in political advertising.

I thought the out of context joke would be appreciated.
Heck political advertising, thats about 75% of what life science research (my current field) is

Please stop talking

The only change I know of is allowing teams with losing records fill in in the event that there aren't enough bowl-eligible teams.

The catch, though, is that most conferences have secondary agreements to backup in other bowls. For example, the ACC has eight primary agreements and a ninth with the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. So should the ACC have nine eligible teams, and the Fight Hunger Bowl can't fill its spot, the ACC's ninth team gets to go even at 6-6.

Even so, there will be several bowls left with no teams from primary or secondary agreements that are eligible and they will then have to take an eight- or seven-win team over six-win teams. And I still think there will be no more than a handful of six-win teams that don't go to a bowl. Don't think they'll have to dip down to take a five-win team, but it probably will be close.

Looking at my numbers (which appear to mesh with the numbers in the "Race for Blow Slots" thread), there are currently 56 bowl eligible teams (not counting any teams that would require a waiver to the standard rules to make a bowl...i.e. no transitional teams) and 35 bowl ineligible teams. The ineligible number includes teams that have bowl bans (OSU, Penn State, UNC) but does not include teams considering a self-imposed bowl ban (University of Miami). This leaves 33 teams in the running for 14 bowl slots.

There are 14 teams that need one win to become eligible. Looking at this week's schedule, 1 of those teams will be bowl eligible by the end of the weekend (the winner of the Syracuse/Missouri tilt). At most, I could see 8 of the other teams winning and becoming eligible (Georgia Tech over Duke, Miami(Fl) over USF, Iowa State over Kansas, Michigan State over Northwestern, SMU over Rice, Air Force over Hawaii, ASU over Washington State, and figure one of Louisiana Lafayette or Troy could win their games). That would leave 5 slots.

Looking at the other side of the equation. There are 18 teams that will become ineligible with another loss. 2 of those teams, UCONN and Pittsburgh, do not play this week. We'll go ahead and count UVA as losing to UNC tonight and note that 2 matchups are essentially elimination games: Houston vs. Marshall and CMU vs. Fiami. Among the remaining games, Vegas is reasonably confident that 7 will lose this weekend (the following are at least 3.5 point underdogs this weekend: Maryland+31; Indiana+17.5; Iowa+16.5; Rice+3.5; Arkansas+6; Tennessee+3.5; North Texas+10.5). Those 10 losses would leave 23 teams gunning for 14 bowl slots.

Combining the numbers, that would leave roughly 14 teams trying to get eligible after this weekend and 5 unfilled bowl slots still waiting for someone to get eligible.