With the addition of bowl games in Orlando and Tucson, there will be a record 41 bowl games played in 2015.
Typically, it takes six wins to clinch bowl eligibility. But with the need for a whopping 80 teams to fill those bowl slots this season, there’s a chance there will not be enough teams that reach the six-win mark.
So what will the NCAA do in that situation? Some 5-7 teams will fill the void, but according to ESPN’s Brett McMurphy, there is no established plan to choose one 5-7 team over another.
This could be a mess.
So with the bowl invitations to be extended in less than three weeks on Dec. 6, there remains one small issue with determining how to select the 5-7 teams: No one has any idea how the teams will be selected.
Keith Martin, the NCAA’s managing director, said the final tiebreaker (Bylaw 18.7.2.1.4) indicates that if 5-7 teams are needed, the top five teams in the FBS with the best APR would be selected. Those five teams -- Wisconsin, Northwestern, Duke, Michigan and Stanford -- have already reached six wins.
Bowl and conference sources told ESPN that their understanding of the APR rule is that it’s supposed to rank the available 5-7 teams by APR. The NCAA disagrees.
As of now, 62 teams are eligible for postseason play with 32 others that could potentially reach six wins. So there is a chance that this situation will not come to a head.
If it does, there are a bevy of scenarios to consider.
From ESPN:
If two bowls need 5-7 teams, do the No. 1 and No. 2 best APR teams automatically get the bids or does the bowl have the option of selecting any team among the top five APR teams?
If more than one bowl needs a 5-7 team, how do you decide which bowl picks first? The Big Ten, Big 12 and American are among the conferences that may not have enough six win teams to fill their bowl commitments, so does a 5-7 team from their league with the best APR automatically fill one of their slots -- even if they’re not among the top five available APR teams?
“You tell me,” a source said when asked how the teams would be selected. “No one knows.”
NCAA managing director Keith Martin told ESPN that the NCAA and conferences will “eventually” decide a way to choose from the available 5-7 teams. The two sides don’t have a whole lot of time to figure this one out.
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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!