Automatic Bids to Non-BCS Bowls
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There are 26 Non-BCS Bowl games in the 2006-07 NCAA College Football bowl season. Most of these post-season games will pit one conference against another, based upon contractual obligations called "tie-ins" and upon which teams are "bowl eligible." The selection of the team is based on the regular season final standings within the respective conferences, excluding those chosen to play in one of the four BCS bowl games. Selection to any of the four BCS bowl games is based on BCS rules and on conference tie-ins to those bowls.
Bowl game pairings
| Bowl Game | Conference/Team | Conference/Team |
|---|---|---|
| Capital One Bowl | SEC #1 | Big Ten #1 |
| Toyota Gator Bowl | ACC #2 | Big 12 / Big East / Notre Dame |
| AT&T Cotton Bowl | Big 12 #1 | SEC # 2, 3, or 4 |
| Outback Bowl | SEC #2, 3, or 4 | Big Ten #2 |
| International Bowl | MAC #3 | Big East |
| AutoZone Liberty Bowl | C-USA #1 | SEC #8 |
| Meineke Car Care Bowl | Big East / Navy | ACC #4 |
| Chick-fil-A Bowl | ACC #1 | SEC #2, 3, or 4 |
| Independence Bowl | Big 12 #7 | SEC #6 / #7 |
| Vitalis Sun Bowl | Pac-10 #2 | Big 12 / Big East / Notre Dame |
| Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl | ACC #5 / #6 | SEC #6 / #7 |
| Pacific Life Holiday Bowl | Pac-10 #1 | Big 12 #2 |
| Emerald Bowl | Pac-10 #4 / #5 | ACC |
| Alamo Bowl | Big 12 #3 | Big Ten #4 / 5 |
| MPC Computers Bowl | ACC #5 / #6 | WAC #1 |
| Insight Bowl | Big 12 #5, 6 or 7 | Big Ten #6 |
| Champs Sports Bowl | Big Ten #4 / #5 | ACC #3 |
| Motor City Bowl | Big Ten / Big East | MAC #1 |
| Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl | Pac-10 #3 | WAC #2 |
| Alltel Wireless Bowl | C-USA (2006, 2008) Pac-10 (2007, 2009) | MWC |
| Pioneer Pure Vision Las Vegas Bowl | Pac-10 #4 / #5 | MWC #2 |
| SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl | MWC #3 | At-large opponent |
| GMAC Bowl | MAC #2 / WAC | C-USA |
| New Orleans Bowl | Sun Belt #1 | C-USA #2 |
| Birmingham Bowl | Big East / MAC | C-USA |
| New Mexico Bowl | WAC #4 | MWC #4 |
When not invited to the BCS, Notre Dame participates in the Big East pool of bowl games. Note: In 2005, the SEC and the Pac 10 did not have enough teams that qualified to play in bowl games (six wins are needed to qualify).
| BCS Games | Conference | Conference |
|---|---|---|
| Rose Bowl | Big Ten | Pac-10 |
| Fiesta Bowl | At-Large | Big 12 |
| Orange Bowl | At-Large | ACC |
| Sugar Bowl | At-Large | SEC |
| BCS Championship Game | BCS #1 | BCS #2 |
Selection of the teams
The selection of the team is based on the regular season final standings. The teams already selected to play in BCS Bowl games are not counted when selecting non-BCS Bowl teams, for example in 2005, Penn State went to play in the Orange Bowl (in lieu of the Rose Bowl as that game served as the BCS National Championship Game) and Ohio State went to play in the Fiesta Bowl, then the remaining top-ranked team, which was in this case Wisconsin, played in the Capital One Bowl as "Big Ten #1" as stated in the chart above.
In some instances, the conferences leave part of the selections up to the Bowl administrators. For example, bowls designated to receive #3, 4, or 5 picks out of the ACC must lobby to the teams in the ACC that they think will make for the best matchup and create the most revenue. The team with the best conference record will not automatically play in the Bowl game with the biggest payout. This scheme is in place to avoid teams returning to the same bowls year after year, if possible.
In certain cases, a conference may not have enough "bowl eligible" teams to fulfill its obligations to provide teams to certain bowls. In this case, an "at-large" team may be chosen. This happened in 2004 as many major conferences such as the Pac 10 and the Big 12 did not have enough teams with enough wins (six) to qualify under NCAA rules to enter a bowl. In addition, two of the Big 12's bowl-eligible teams, Oklahoma and Texas, were playing in BCS bowls. Further adding to the chaos, two bowl-eligible teams, Clemson from the ACC and South Carolina from the SEC, announced they would turn down any bowl invitation as self-imposed punishment for a massive brawl between players from both schools during their season-ending rivalry game occuring less than 24 hours after the imfamous "Palace Brawl" NBA game between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons, costing the schools as well as the conferences at least $1.5 million (US), the minimum NCAA bowl payout. Topping that, for the first time in BCS history, a non-BCS school, the Mountain West's Utah, qualified for the BCS, resulting in even more shuffling of normal bowl tie-ins. Because of that, the Liberty Bowl, which normally takes the champion of the MWC, chose to invite the WAC champion, Boise State.
As an example of the fallout from these developments, the Fort Worth Bowl (now the alltel Wireless Bowl) was not able to fill its contracted Big 12 spot with a team from that conference. This led to the bowl choosing Marshall, then in the MAC and now in Conference USA, to fill the Big 12's last Bowl spot. However, it was fatally worse for the Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose, as it had no representative from either of its' two affiliated conferences, the WAC or the Pac-10. Instead, it selected the MAC's Northern Illinois and Troy from the Sun Belt Conference. Following that year's game — which had negative press coverage and very low attendance, partially due to the game being played in an extremely rare December Bay Area downpour — the game lost its NCAA certification.
The selection of which team will fill which of the team's conference bowl spots is largely arbitrary. The designation "#1 team" may imply the best conference record or the highest ranking on any of the national polls at the end of the season of the remaining conference teams that are not in BCS bowl games. In some conferences the rules state which is the case, and in others the decision is made by the universities, the conferences, and the bowl administrators, and may be based on geography. The Independence Bowl, for instance, only has loose ties with the Big 12 and SEC, although any Division I-A team may be chosen to play in the bowl.
Conference commissioners took control of the Bowl games in the early 1990s. Now, revenue from the bowl games goes directly to the respective conferences to split among its members. Conferences compete aggressively for the automatic tie-ins to bowl games.
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