Bowl Blog 11/20: The Plane Is Filling Up Fast

Hard to believe, but we’re a couple of weeks out from Thanksgiving and the traditional end of the line for teams not engaging in postseason play. Most teams only have two games remaining, some only one. Let's start by welcoming in this week's class of newcomers to bowl eligibility: Arkansas St Buffalo BYU Eastern Michigan Florida St Georgia Southern Iowa State Louisville Utah State Of these, only a few of the “State” teams are of interest to me. Arkansas State, Iowa State, Utah State. I don’t care for Florida State. BYU is boring as an independent team they’re pretty much locked into a single bowl game they have a contract with unless they somehow sneak into the playoffs. BYU may have already accepted their invitation *yawn*(1). Iowa State punched their ticket by way of a game-winning field goal beating who my four-year-old daughter calls “The Orange Reindeer” (Texas). There were times in my life where I hated all things Iowa with a passion but that was before I had real-life things to worry about or the requirement to adult. Beating The Orange Reindeer helps get you off my emotional hook. Utah State held off already eligible Wyoming in a slight upset. I’ve always somewhat liked Utah State, ever since Nebraska played them during my college years. For the same reason I’m happy for Arkansas State, Nebraska’s non-conference teams tend to gain a lot of respect and I’m not sure why that is. We seem to have played the Red Wolves quite a bit over the last decade and I think they even beat us once (2),...yet for some reason, I don't hate them. Speaking of “us” I think I’m just going to lean into the habit of referring to Nebraska as “us” or “we” or whatever, instead of fighting against it. If that isn’t your bag I understand. This is getting a bit wordy, better hurry onto the complete list of bowl-eligible teams:

#	Team
1	Air Force
2	Alabama
3	App State
4	Arkansas St
5	Auburn
6	Baylor
7	Boise State
8	Buffalo
9	BYU
10	Central FL
11	Central Mich
12	Cincinnati
13	Clemson
14	Eastern Michigan
15	Fla Atlantic
16	Florida
17	Florida St
18	GA Southern
19	Georgia
20	Georgia State
21	Hawaii
22	Illinois
23	Indiana
24	Iowa
25	Iowa State
26	Kansas St
27	LA Lafayette
28	LA Tech
29	Liberty
30	Louisville
31	LSU
32	Marshall
33	Memphis
34	Miami (FL)
35	Miami (OH)
36	Michigan
37	Minnesota
38	Navy
39	Nevada
40	Notre Dame
41	Ohio State
42	Oklahoma
43	Oklahoma St
44	Oregon
45	Penn State
46	Pittsburgh
47	S Methodist
48	S Mississippi
49	San Diego St
50	Temple
51	Texas
52	Texas A&M
53	Toledo
54	Tulane
55	UAB
56	USC
57	Utah
58	Utah State
59	VA Tech
60	Virginia
61	W Kentucky
62	W Michigan
63	Wake Forest
64	Washington
65	Wisconsin
66	Wyoming

I count 66 teams for 78 spots. Army, East Carolina, Liberty, and Hawaii need a seventh win to become bowl eligible, Hawaii because they are playing a 13 game schedule and the rest because they played two 1-AA teams. In the craziness that was hurrying last week's blog out the door, I left Hawaii off every list and I’m pretty sure I didn’t correct the other games. I thought about tweeting out a test to see if anyone could figure out who I left out, but that didn’t happen. I’d like to do more stuff in real-time on social media. ( @Smitty818 ) Another spot is spoken for because I happen to know that both Oregon State and Washington State are 5-5 and play each other on November 23rd. Because college games can’t end in a tie one of them will become bowl eligible. The only reason I know this is because I like most people think Mike Leach (0,1,2,3) is a national treasure and root for Wazzoo accordingly. So there may be more situations like Oregon State/Washington, that I’m not aware of. That leaves 12 spots. Guess how many teams are one win away from bowl eligibility? Exactly 12.

Those twelve teams one win away (after Tuesday and Wednesday #MACtion) Arizona State 79.2%, Boston College 34.1%, California 62.1 %, Charlotte 70.6%, FIU 24%, Kentucky 99.6%, Liberty Almost 100%, Oregon State 16.1%, TCU 88.7%, Tennessee 94.6%, Troy 32.1%, Washington State 89.8% Then comes a very small very unique group, I like the idea of forever calling this group the “Ohio” group. I’ll only get to use it once a year so playing the long game here may not be advisable, this is the situation Ohio is in, they have one game left, and they need one win to become bowl eligible, a lot of teams will be in this spot after Saturday but for now, Frankie and the Ohio Bobcats stand alone. The good news for the Bobcats is they face the Akron Zips (0-10) who are really nailing down their lack of bowl eligibility, so Ohio has a very high chance (96.4%) of become bowl eligible. At this point I’m going to step back. Last night NC State lost to fall to lowly Georgia Tech meaning the NC State Wolfpack are now in the “Stand-by” group. The cycle for these blogs goes something like this, especially this time of year when only Monday and Sunday college football games aren’t being played. I think I can push this out before that nights game I don’t (usually out of laziness) I adjust the records to match the results the night before Go to step 1. So I’m not going to go back and fix NC State. For the longest time last night I was convinced I wasn’t going to do this anymore, but here I am and here are the bowl bubble teams, one pop away from falling to Stand-by, you’ll notice the number of groups is getting smaller and smaller as we get closer to the end. Eventually we’ll have the in, out, and standby groups.

Team Name	Wins	Losses
Ohio	5	6	96.5
Michigan State	4	6	79.6
Mississippi State	4	6	71.1
North Carolina	4	6	69.4
Fresno State	4	6	54.8
Ball State	4	6	35.5
Coastal Carolina	4	6	33.4
NC State	4	6	16.1
Nebraska	4	6	13.2
Stanford	4	6	10.5
Duke	4	6	10
UCLA	4	6	9.3
Texas Tech	4	6	8.8
Louisiana Monroe	4	6	2.9
Colorado State	4	6	2.7
Arizona	4	6	1.7
USF	4	6	1
UTSA	4	6	0.4

As you can see, some overlap here, as the Fightin’ Frankie’s are technically in this group too, but as mentioned before their final game against the Zips looks like an almost a sure thing. So combining the 12 seats left and 12 teams that only need one win, even those that go 0-2 will be made up by the few that sneak in from the bubble group. Translation: Things are looking good for our “Invisible Bowl” our fictional bowl game that matches up teams that achieve bowl eligibility. I’m still strongly considering reaching out to these schools in real life, couldn’t hurt, could be fun. For the same reason, things are looking good for our “Invisible Bowl” is looking good, means the stand-by group, teams that need to win out and hope not enough teams qualify before even being considered things are looking grim.

Stand-By Group	W	L
East Carolina	3	7
Houston	3	7
Kansas	3	7
Maryland	3	7
Middle Tenn	3	7
NC State	4	7
Mississippi	4	7
Northern Illinois	4	7
South Carolina	4	7
Texas State	3	7
Tulsa	3	7

I said I wasn’t going to fix NC State didn’t I? /meh

This next group are the newly bowl ineligible teams. I won’t relist the teams whose fate has dealt them bowl lessness. 

Done	W	L
Bowling Green	3	8
Georgia Tech	3	8
New Mexico	2	8
Rutgers	2	8
UNLV	2	8
Vanderbilt	2	8

For the above teams all they can hope to do the mature grown-up thing and spoil someone else's chances.

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1. Yep, they totes did. Doesn’t say anything about being locked into a particular bowl game though. I GUESS they earn the distinction of the first team to accept a bowl bid by myself,....not exactly the highest honor. 
2. 3 times, 2017, 2012, and 2009, they’ve never beaten us, I like them more now.