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How many wins do you need for bowl eligibility?

By John Buhler

Nov 19, 2016; Nashville, TN, USA; Vanderbilt Commodores players celebrate after a win against the Mississippi Rebels at Vanderbilt Stadium. Vanderbilt won 38-17. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 19, 2016; Nashville, TN, USA; Vanderbilt Commodores players celebrate after a win against the Mississippi Rebels at Vanderbilt Stadium. Vanderbilt won 38-17. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports /
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The term ‘bowl eligibility’ is thrown around a lot this time of year in college football conversations. How many wins does a team need to be bowl eligible?

FBS college football has a unique postseason for its 128 member institutions across its 10 conferences and independent programs.

Only four teams will be playing in the College Football Playoff. The other 124 are fighting for bowl eligibility. What is defined as being bowl eligible? How many wins does that require?

The definition of bowl eligibility has been altered a good bit over the years, but the most recent definition in place dates back to Aug. 2, 2012. There are six parts to this well put together process.

  1. A team is bowl eligible is it finishes its regular season 6-6 with one against a FCS program, regardless if the opponents meet the NCAA scholarship requirement. Should a team go 6-6 with a win over an Ivy League school or Georgetown, a team can be bowl eligible. The Ivy League, Georgetown, and the Pioneer League don’t offer college football scholarships.
  2. A team finishes 6-6 with no more than two wins against FCS opponents. FBS teams don’t normally schedule more than one FCS opponent annually. That only hurts a team’s chances of making the College Football Playoff.
  3. Teams that finish 6-7, only because they lost a conference championship game.
  4. 6-7 if a team would normally play a 13-game schedule. A team like this would be the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors of the Mountain West Conference. They receive an extra game annually to make up for difficult travel.
  5. Former FCS teams in the second year of their two-year transition process to FBS competition if they go 6-6 or better. The Georgia Southern Eagles became bowl eligible in their second year at the FBS level in 2015. Though they had a winning record in 2014, Georgia Southern wasn’t bowl-eligible in its first year of FBS competition.
  6. If there are not enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all the bowls, teams that have a top-five Academic Progress Rate can become bowl eligible at 5-7. This rewards teams that have strict academics like Vanderbilt or Northwestern achieve bowl eligibility at 5-7.

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The best way to become bowl eligible is to win at least six of 12 regular season games. When most people talk about a program becoming bowl eligible, it means that a team has either exceeded or is approaching the crucial six-win threshold. Basically, win six college football games a season to become bowl eligible in FBS. It’s not that hard.

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