With the landscape of college football changing, new teams are part of new conferences, which makes things a bit awkward for bowl games. Historically, bowl games have matched up with conferences to make it so that in most years, the amount of bowl-eligible teams was close to or exactly the number of bowl games with a contract with the conference.
Conference realignment has changed that.
Nonconference Games Make Bowl Games Easy for P4 Teams
Teams must reach a 6-6 or better record to be bowl-eligible. Since teams play three to four nonconference games, and normally, three are considered games that a P4 team should win, most P4 teams are 3-0 or 2-1 or better before conference play begins.
This means a team can go 3-6 or 4-5 in conference play and be bowl eligible. With Texas and Oklahoma in the SEC, two additional bowl teams from the SEC are almost expected this year. It’s unlikely that there will now be two teams who would have been bowl-eligible and who now will not be by adding the new schools.
The ACC is also in a similar situation, adding SMU, Cal, and Stanford. While Cal and Stanford may not be bowl-eligible, they became winnable conference games for other teams. So, where do the extra two to three bowl game spots come from?
Part of that is starting to get answered.
Pac-12 Bowl Games Will be Affiliated With Former Pac-12 Teams
The Pac-12 (2) officially announced that the bowl games will remain affiliated with the conference through the 2025 season. Although the news was expected, nothing was made official until announced at the informal Pac-12 media days. In other words, even though Stanford and Cal are in the ACC, and Oregon and USC are in the Big 10, they will still be slotted in the old Pac-12 bowl games this year unless they make the 12-team College Football Playoff.
The main reasons for this decision were that Oregon State and Washington State still have bowl game destinations, as well as the logistics and difficulty of reshuffling bowl game matchups.
- Dec. 18: LA Bowl
- Dec. 27: Las Vegas Bowl
- Dec. 28: Alamo Bowl
- Dec 28: Independence Bowl
- Dec. 31: Sun Bowl
- (The Holiday Bowl has not announced its date.)
It is worth noting that the Rose Bowl is no longer affiliated with any conference. It will serve as a playoff game, which can match up any teams from any conference, including teams from the same conference (yes, we could have a Boston College vs Syracuse Rose Bowl….technically).
We are excited to announce the 24 teams that will be eligible to play in the Valero Alamo Bowl on Saturday, December 28 at 6:30pm CT on ABC! Looking forward to another great bowl season.#ValeroAlamoBowl pic.twitter.com/QWKZstJxXf
— Valero Alamo Bowl (@valeroalamobowl) July 12, 2024
What Will the Future of Bowl Games Look Like?
First, there are questions about whether bowl games will even exist in a few years. With the number of opt-outs and players in the transfer portal, the appeal of bowl games may not be worth it for sponsors and venues to host. There is also talk of the G5 having their own playoff. With the best 16 P4 and G5 schools in their own playoff, other bowl games would become as watchable as NIT games—heck, maybe even a CBA tournament. If that happens, they may just disappear completely.
However, assuming they stick around, we can expect to see bowl games rearrange their conference affiliations. For example, the LA Bowl may not want to be affiliated with the ACC or Big 10 since there is a high risk that no West Coast school can play in the game. If the LA Bowl were to be Big 10 vs ACC, it very well could end up being a Rutgers vs Boston College matchup in Los Angeles. Talk about an empty stadium.
Instead, the LA Bowl may want to take the safe route and go Big 12 vs Mountain West. The Big 12 likely has enough teams in the region to field a team, and the Mountain West certainly would.
Here is the best guess of where each bowl game will want to go:
- LA Bowl: Big 12 vs Mountain West
- Las Vegas Bowl: Big 12 vs Big 10
- Alamo Bowl: Big 12 vs SEC
- Independence Bowl: CUSA vs Sun Belt
- Sun Bowl: Mountain West vs CUSA
- Holiday Bowl: Mountain West vs At-Large
Get More NFL and College Football Content
Check out more of my stories, or leave a comment below! For more of the biggest storylines of College Football, the transfer portal, or the NFL, click here or follow me on Twitter/X.
