Cal Headed to a Bowl, Probably Independence Vs. Texas Tech, Kansas or Iowa State

There are 82 FBS bowl vacancies and there will be 80 bowl-eligible teams

Cal’s bowl situation looks pretty simple: In all likelihood Cal (6-6) will play in the December 16 Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La., and its opponent will be a Big 12 team, most likely Texas Tech but possibly Kansas or Iowa State.

That’s how things will shake out if two Pac-12 teams get berths in New Year’s Six games. That’s a strong possibility at the moment because the winner of the Pac-12 championship game between Washington and Oregon is a good bet to earn a berth in the College Football Playoff and the loser is likely to be invited to one of the other four New Year’s Six bowls (Fiesta, Cotton, Peach and Orange). That would leave six bowls with Pac-12 tie-ins available to the six remaining bowl-eligible Pac-12 teams.

The Independence Bowl presumably will get the final pick of a bowl-eligible Pac-12 team, and that would no doubt be Cal since the Bears have the worst overall record of the conference’s bowl-eligible teams and is tied with UCLA for the worst conference record of those bowl-eligible teams.

The Independence Bowl then gets the sixth pick of a Big 12 team after the Big 12 fills any vacancies in the New Year’s Six bowls. Texas will undoubtedly fill one of those spots and Oklahoma might or might not give the Big 12 a second berth in the New Year’s Six bowls. If two Big 12 teams get into New Year’s Six games, Cal’s opponent will probably be Texas Tech. If just one Big 12 gets into the New Year’s Six games, Cal’s Independence Bowl opponent might be Kansas or Iowa State.

There remains an outside possibility that only one Pac-12 team will get a berth in New Year’s Six games. In that unlikely scenario, there would not be enough bowls with Pac-12 tie-ins to give Cal a bowl berth. But fear not, Cal would be going to some other bowl that has a vacancy in that case.

There are 41 FBS bowls, which means there are 82 bowl vacancies. Seventy-nine  teams, including Cal, are bowl-eligible, and the winner of the December 9 Army-Navy game between two 5-6 teams will give us 80 bowl-eligible teams. It worked out perfectly -- a bowl spot for each bowl-eligible team with two left over, presumably for James Madison and Jacksonville State, A bowl spot was not guaranteed to a 6-6 Cal team until a number of 5-6 teams lost this weekend.

So Cal seems assured of going to a bowl, and if two Pac-12 teams get New Year’s Six bowl berths as expected, the Bears presumably will be headed to Louisiana just three weeks after beating UCLA.

The matchups for the two College Football Playoff semifinal games as well as the four other New Year’s Six games will be announced next Sunday, December 3, two days after the Pac-12 championship game. The matchups for all other bowls will probably be announced sometime later on December 3.

Cover photo by Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports

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