No New Bowl Games Will Be Added This Season, Bowl Executive Director Says

The slate of college football bowl games will stay at 41, as will the eligibility standard of a 6–6 record.

After a review of the bowl system this spring, college leaders decided against approving any new bowl games while also keeping the eligibility standard of a 6–6 record, bowl executives were told at their annual conference this week in Nashville.

Though there was some interest in creating new bowl games, officials decided to keep the bowl lineup at 41. Despite conversations about increasing the postseason eligibility standard to 7–5, potentially eliminating some bowls, the 6–6 mark will continue, Bowl Season executive director Nick Carparelli confirmed to Sports Illustrated.

“We had lengthy discussions with the 10 conference offices as well as the NCAA football competition committee about bowl eligibility criteria,” Carparelli says. “It was unanimous that we maintain 6–6 as the bowl-eligible standard.”

New bowls could be approved in the future, but it appears unlikely in the current environment.

“In a word, we don’t like the notion of 5–7 teams participating,” Carparelli says. “That’s not what they are intended for, but we do want to make sure every 6–6 team has a place to go bowling. The hard part is that you don’t know at the beginning of the season how many bowl-eligible teams you’re going to have. Last year, we had one too many. This year, we had one [less than] enough. We are hovering right around the right number. No one is inclined to add any.”

In 2010 the NCAA changed bowl eligibility to grant access to teams with a 6–6 record, a move to correspond with college football moving to a 12th regular-season game and the creation of new bowls. Since ’12 the organization has used 5–7 teams to complete the bowl field if there was not enough 6–6 teams.

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A decade later, college sports have set historic marks for the number of bowl participants with nonwinning records. The 22 bowl teams with nonwinning records in 2021 was the most of all time. Last year’s total (19) was the third most in history. In the past two years, two teams have advanced to bowls with losing records.

Last year there were 80 bowl-eligible teams and 49 ineligible, a dynamic that coincides with the increase in sponsored bowl games, which has spiked from 35 in 2010 to 41 today. It’s a rapid increase that has led to officials twice putting a moratorium on new bowl games.

In nine of the past 10 years, the number of bowl spots has outnumbered the number of bowl-eligible teams, forcing bowls to incorporate those with 5–7 records. The issue has been discussed among members of the NCAA competition committee—whether to move the standard to 7–5 and use only 6–6 teams in emergency cases, like the bowls now use with 5–7 records.

“It’s important to remember that the bowl system is a market-driven system. No one is forcing communities to host them and conferences to participate in them,” Carparelli has said in the past.

Carparelli is hoping to hold a meeting with FBS commissioners about a wide range of issues this summer.