The NCAA is now requiring all teams with 6-6 records to be selected for a bowl game before a team with a losing record can get picked.
During the 2015 college football season, 80 teams in the FBS level were able to say they played in a postseason bowl game. For 77 of those teams, they were able to say they entered their bowl game with a winning record.
For three teams (Nebraska, Minnesota and San Jose State), the mass amount of bowl games meant spots needed to be filled. Since they had the three best graduation rates among the 5-7 teams, they got to go bowling, with the Cornhuskers and Golden Gophers coming out victorious.
At the same time, other teams that had 6-6 records had plenty of beef about the fact that both Nebraska and Minnesota got to go to better bowl games thanks to their status as members of Power Five conferences.
Now, the NCAA is making sure to change that by re-working the way bowls select teams with records of .500 or worse:
"The NCAA’s Division I Council has mandated that all bowl-eligible teams with 6-6 records must be selected for a bowl game before any teams with a 5-7 record can be considered.After all bowl-eligible teams are selected, the 5-7 teams — which will be considered alternates — will be deemed eligible in descending order from the highest multiyear Academic Progress Rate in the Football Bowl Subdivision for the most recent reporting year."
The non-college football diehard (you know, the same people who whined until they got the awful College Football Playoff) are going to whine because the big name teams they know won’t get to better games. But in reality, this is a great move for the sport in having better records get rewarded … you know, the whole point of sports.
For more NCAA Football news, check out our NCAA Football hub page.