The 5-7 bowl game scenario 11/14

[DawgatAuburn]

Does going to a bowl game get more appealing without Arnett? If so, we have some work to do.

Week 1 (with more background): https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/bowl-chances-at-5-7.1123980/
Week 2: https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/the-5-7-scenario-10-23.1134896/
Week 3: https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/the-5-7-bowl-game-scenario-10-30.1146142/#post-21162683
Week 4: https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/the-5-7-bowl-game-scenario-11-7.1160859/#post-21476009

As expected, Clemson, Auburn and Iowa State all achieved bowl eligibility this past week, so they are off of the APR table below.

Apr Rank	School	W	L	Remaining Schedule	Projected wins	Proj Total
1	Northwestern	5	5	Purdue, Illinois	1	6
2	Wisconsin	5	5	Nebraska, Minnesota	1	6
6	Cincinnati	3	7	West VA, Kansas	0	3
9	Minnesota	5	5	Ohio State, Wisconsin	1	6
10	Wake Forest	4	6	Notre Dame, Syracuse	0	4
13	Boise State	5	5	Utah State, Air Force	2	7
17	Rice	4	6	Charlotte, FAU	2	6
21	Mississippi State	4	6	Southern Miss, Ole Miss	1	5

So where does this leave us?

Let's start today with the number of bowl eligible teams. There are 41 bowl games, 82 slots to fill.

11/14: 60 teams bowl eligible, 22 with five wins, 19 with 4 wins. Three are 22 teams with three wins, but they are all 3-7 and other than Cincinnati, cannot be bowl eligible nor ranked above us in the APR. So 21 of those are out of the running. There are 10 teams with 1 or 2 wins. They are also done. That leaves a pool of 102 teams to fill 82 slots.
11/7: 53 teams bowl eligible, 17 with five wins, 24 with four wins, 23 with three wins, 16 with 2 or 1 (Sam Houston won!)
10/30: 43 teams bowl eligible. 19 with five wins. 27 with four wins. 17 with three wins. 27 with 2, 1, or 0 (poor Sam Houston State).
10/23: 32 teams are already bowl eligible, 19 more have five wins, 29 have four wins. 24 more teams sit at 3 wins.

The bad news is there are 22 teams a win away from bowl eligibility. Maybe even one or two of the 4 win teams might win their final two games. It'll clear up more after this week when most teams will only have one game left to go. FYI the five win list is:

Texas Tech
UCF
Wisconsin
Florida
Boise State
Virginia Tech
Nebraska
Minnesota
San Jose State
Illinois
Northwestern
BYU
Syracuse
Georgia Tech
South Alabama
Utah State
Western Kentucky
Marshall
Louisiana
Central Michigan
Arkansas State
South Florida

I guess we will be paying more attention to this group in the next two weeks.


As for the chart, we are currently eighth in the pecking order, but really we are more like sixth.

• Wisconsin and Minnesota play each other next week, so one of them is assured of a sixth win. That bumps us up a peg to 7th.
• Cincinnati managed to beat Houston but it still seems unlikely they will win their remaining two games to get to 5-7. If you assume they are out, now we are 6th. We need them to lose one more.
• Northwestern's win over Wisconsin assured them priority over us. They will either win one more game and be legit bowl eligible, or the #1 ranked 5-7 option.
• Wisconsin and Minnesota were both already in that same position with five wins. Doesn't matter if Minnesota loses to both Ohio State and Wisconsin. They are still a higher priority than us.
• Wake Forest continues to be a team to cheer against. We need them to lose to Notre Dame and then to lose to Syracuse in the finale. One win in those two and they will be bowling before we are.
• Boise is already at 5 and will be ahead of us even if they lose out.
• Rice needs one of their last two to stay ahead of us. If you want to go bowling, then you are cheering against Rice the next two weeks.

There's a path to be the top team on this somewhat dubious list.

• Northwestern wins one more, they are off the list.
• Wisconsin beats Nebraska but loses to Minnesota. Both of them come off the list.
• Cincy loses one more. Not 5-7.
• Wake loses out. Not 5-7.
• Boise wins one more, gets to 6 wins.
• Rice loses out, not 5-7.

Of course the downside of that scenario is that teams are coming off the list as 6-6 teams and gobbling up bowl spots, but they were ahead of us anyway based off the APR so in this case there's no difference in being 6-6 and 5-7.

 

[Trojanbulldog19]

I just don't see it this year without being 6-6. We have been putrid most of our games. We would need to win the last two.

 

[Dawgg]

I just don't see it this year without being 6-6. We have been putrid most of our games. We would need to win the last two.

It’s not a matter of attractiveness. Once they get to 5-7, the bowls have to go in order of APR. We could be the absolute sнittiest 5-7 team available, but if our 3 year APR average is the highest available, then we’re in.

 

[Dawgg]

Does going to a bowl game get more appealing without Arnett? If so, we have some work to do.

Week 1 (with more background): https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/bowl-chances-at-5-7.1123980/
Week 2: https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/the-5-7-scenario-10-23.1134896/
Week 3: https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/the-5-7-bowl-game-scenario-10-30.1146142/#post-21162683
Week 4: https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/the-5-7-bowl-game-scenario-11-7.1160859/#post-21476009

As expected, Clemson, Auburn and Iowa State all achieved bowl eligibility this past week, so they are off of the APR table below.

Apr Rank	School	W	L	Remaining Schedule	Projected wins	Proj Total
1	Northwestern	5	5	Purdue, Illinois	1	6
2	Wisconsin	5	5	Nebraska, Minnesota	1	6
6	Cincinnati	3	7	West VA, Kansas	0	3
9	Minnesota	5	5	Ohio State, Wisconsin	1	6
10	Wake Forest	4	6	Notre Dame, Syracuse	0	4
13	Boise State	5	5	Utah State, Air Force	2	7
17	Rice	4	6	Charlotte, FAU	2	6
21	Mississippi State	4	6	Southern Miss, Ole Miss	1	5

So where does this leave us?

Let's start today with the number of bowl eligible teams. There are 41 bowl games, 82 slots to fill.

11/14: 60 teams bowl eligible, 22 with five wins, 19 with 4 wins. Three are 22 teams with three wins, but they are all 3-7 and other than Cincinnati, cannot be bowl eligible nor ranked above us in the APR. So 21 of those are out of the running. There are 10 teams with 1 or 2 wins. They are also done. That leaves a pool of 102 teams to fill 82 slots.
11/7: 53 teams bowl eligible, 17 with five wins, 24 with four wins, 23 with three wins, 16 with 2 or 1 (Sam Houston won!)
10/30: 43 teams bowl eligible. 19 with five wins. 27 with four wins. 17 with three wins. 27 with 2, 1, or 0 (poor Sam Houston State).
10/23: 32 teams are already bowl eligible, 19 more have five wins, 29 have four wins. 24 more teams sit at 3 wins.

The bad news is there are 22 teams a win away from bowl eligibility. Maybe even one or two of the 4 win teams might win their final two games. It'll clear up more after this week when most teams will only have one game left to go. FYI the five win list is:

Texas Tech
UCF
Wisconsin
Florida
Boise State
Virginia Tech
Nebraska
Minnesota
San Jose State
Illinois
Northwestern
BYU
Syracuse
Georgia Tech
South Alabama
Utah State
Western Kentucky
Marshall
Louisiana
Central Michigan
Arkansas State
South Florida

I guess we will be paying more attention to this group in the next two weeks.


As for the chart, we are currently eighth in the pecking order, but really we are more like sixth.

• Wisconsin and Minnesota play each other next week, so one of them is assured of a sixth win. That bumps us up a peg to 7th.
• Cincinnati managed to beat Houston but it still seems unlikely they will win their remaining two games to get to 5-7. If you assume they are out, now we are 6th. We need them to lose one more.
• Northwestern's win over Wisconsin assured them priority over us. They will either win one more game and be legit bowl eligible, or the #1 ranked 5-7 option.
• Wisconsin and Minnesota were both already in that same position with five wins. Doesn't matter if Minnesota loses to both Ohio State and Wisconsin. They are still a higher priority than us.
• Wake Forest continues to be a team to cheer against. We need them to lose to Notre Dame and then to lose to Syracuse in the finale. One win in those two and they will be bowling before we are.
• Boise is already at 5 and will be ahead of us even if they lose out.
• Rice needs one of their last two to stay ahead of us. If you want to go bowling, then you are cheering against Rice the next two weeks.

There's a path to be the top team on this somewhat dubious list.

• Northwestern wins one more, they are off the list.
• Wisconsin beats Nebraska but loses to Minnesota. Both of them come off the list.
• Cincy loses one more. Not 5-7.
• Wake loses out. Not 5-7.
• Boise wins one more, gets to 6 wins.
• Rice loses out, not 5-7.

Of course the downside of that scenario is that teams are coming off the list as 6-6 teams and gobbling up bowl spots, but they were ahead of us anyway based off the APR so in this case there's no difference in being 6-6 and 5-7.

Great analysis. Does this take into account that JMU and Jacksonville St are not bowl eligible this year because of the FCS transition period?

ETA: Nevermind. Looks like they get picked first over any 5-7 teams, so it doesn’t matter.

 

[tenureplan]

Does going to a bowl game get more appealing without Arnett? If so, we have some work to do.

Week 1 (with more background): https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/bowl-chances-at-5-7.1123980/
Week 2: https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/the-5-7-scenario-10-23.1134896/
Week 3: https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/the-5-7-bowl-game-scenario-10-30.1146142/#post-21162683
Week 4: https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/the-5-7-bowl-game-scenario-11-7.1160859/#post-21476009

As expected, Clemson, Auburn and Iowa State all achieved bowl eligibility this past week, so they are off of the APR table below.

Apr Rank	School	W	L	Remaining Schedule	Projected wins	Proj Total
1	Northwestern	5	5	Purdue, Illinois	1	6
2	Wisconsin	5	5	Nebraska, Minnesota	1	6
6	Cincinnati	3	7	West VA, Kansas	0	3
9	Minnesota	5	5	Ohio State, Wisconsin	1	6
10	Wake Forest	4	6	Notre Dame, Syracuse	0	4
13	Boise State	5	5	Utah State, Air Force	2	7
17	Rice	4	6	Charlotte, FAU	2	6
21	Mississippi State	4	6	Southern Miss, Ole Miss	1	5

So where does this leave us?

Let's start today with the number of bowl eligible teams. There are 41 bowl games, 82 slots to fill.

11/14: 60 teams bowl eligible, 22 with five wins, 19 with 4 wins. Three are 22 teams with three wins, but they are all 3-7 and other than Cincinnati, cannot be bowl eligible nor ranked above us in the APR. So 21 of those are out of the running. There are 10 teams with 1 or 2 wins. They are also done. That leaves a pool of 102 teams to fill 82 slots.
11/7: 53 teams bowl eligible, 17 with five wins, 24 with four wins, 23 with three wins, 16 with 2 or 1 (Sam Houston won!)
10/30: 43 teams bowl eligible. 19 with five wins. 27 with four wins. 17 with three wins. 27 with 2, 1, or 0 (poor Sam Houston State).
10/23: 32 teams are already bowl eligible, 19 more have five wins, 29 have four wins. 24 more teams sit at 3 wins.

The bad news is there are 22 teams a win away from bowl eligibility. Maybe even one or two of the 4 win teams might win their final two games. It'll clear up more after this week when most teams will only have one game left to go. FYI the five win list is:

Texas Tech
UCF
Wisconsin
Florida
Boise State
Virginia Tech
Nebraska
Minnesota
San Jose State
Illinois
Northwestern
BYU
Syracuse
Georgia Tech
South Alabama
Utah State
Western Kentucky
Marshall
Louisiana
Central Michigan
Arkansas State
South Florida

I guess we will be paying more attention to this group in the next two weeks.


As for the chart, we are currently eighth in the pecking order, but really we are more like sixth.

• Wisconsin and Minnesota play each other next week, so one of them is assured of a sixth win. That bumps us up a peg to 7th.
• Cincinnati managed to beat Houston but it still seems unlikely they will win their remaining two games to get to 5-7. If you assume they are out, now we are 6th. We need them to lose one more.
• Northwestern's win over Wisconsin assured them priority over us. They will either win one more game and be legit bowl eligible, or the #1 ranked 5-7 option.
• Wisconsin and Minnesota were both already in that same position with five wins. Doesn't matter if Minnesota loses to both Ohio State and Wisconsin. They are still a higher priority than us.
• Wake Forest continues to be a team to cheer against. We need them to lose to Notre Dame and then to lose to Syracuse in the finale. One win in those two and they will be bowling before we are.
• Boise is already at 5 and will be ahead of us even if they lose out.
• Rice needs one of their last two to stay ahead of us. If you want to go bowling, then you are cheering against Rice the next two weeks.

There's a path to be the top team on this somewhat dubious list.

• Northwestern wins one more, they are off the list.
• Wisconsin beats Nebraska but loses to Minnesota. Both of them come off the list.
• Cincy loses one more. Not 5-7.
• Wake loses out. Not 5-7.
• Boise wins one more, gets to 6 wins.
• Rice loses out, not 5-7.

Of course the downside of that scenario is that teams are coming off the list as 6-6 teams and gobbling up bowl spots, but they were ahead of us anyway based off the APR so in this case there's no difference in being 6-6 and 5-7.

So basically Boo Rice, Boo Wake, and Boo all 4 and 5 win teams not on your APR list right?

 

[DawgatAuburn]

Great analysis. Does this take into account that JMU is not bowl eligible this year because of the FCS transition period?

I'm assuming that both JMU and Jacksonville State will request and receive waivers. They are both already bowl eligible, so if they are not eligible then that might be just the boost we need to slide in at 5-7.

 

[Dawgg]

I'm assuming that both JMU and Jacksonville State will request and receive waivers. They are both already bowl eligible, so if they are not eligible then that might be just the boost we need to slide in at 5-7.

JMU was denied their waiver, but it’s a wash because the selection for non 6-6 teams is in this order:
1. Teams that are 6-6 but one win is against one of the non-scholarship FCS schools.
2. 6-7 teams
3. 6-6 or better teams in year 2 of their FCS transition.
4. 5-7 teams in order of APR.

 

[00Dawg]

I spun up a cheering guide yesterday geared towards keeping other teams with lower APRs at or below 5-7, plus Wake and Cincy. We don't need all of these to happen by any stretch of the imagination, and some are more important than others (Syracuse beating Georgia Tech immediately opens up a spot for instance).
If the chalk holds, I have us as #82, aka the last team in, but we're not that lucky.

AAC Cheering guide - Tulane over FAU, Charlotte over Rice, ECU over Navy, UTSA over USF

ACC Cheering guide - Syracuse over GT, ND over WF, NC State over VT

Big 12 Cheering guide - OU over BYU, UCF over TT, Baylor over TCU, OSU over Houston, WVU over Cincy

Big Ten Cheering guide - Wisconsin over Nebraska, Iowa over Illinois

CUSA Cheering guide - Sam Houston over WKU, Arkansas over FIU

MAC Cheering guide - Ohio over Central Michigan, Akron over Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan over Northern Illinois

MWC Cheering guide - Nevada over Colorado State, SDSU over San Jose State, Boise State over Utah State

Pac-12 Cheering guide - Stanford over Cal, WSU over Colorado

SEC Cheering guide - Mizzou over UF, UK over South Carolina

Sun Belt Cheering guide - Georgia Southern over ODU, Texas State over Arkansas State, Troy over Louisiana, Marshall over South Alabama

Independents Cheering Guide - Coastal Carolina over Army

 

[johnson86-1]

My math looks like this:
59 teams already eligible (I'm excluding JMU based on Dawgg's comment below) plus 4 teams ahead of us in APR that are already at 5 wins, so that 63 of the 82 spots guaranteed to be taken up before we come up, leaving 19 potential spots for us.

Ignoring MSU, There are 35 teams than can either get to 6 wins or that can get to 5 wins and be ahead of us in APR.

My extremely scientific counting of which of these 35 teams should make it to 6 wins (or 5 wins and be ahead of us in APR) are:
AAC - 2.5
ACC - 3
Big 12 - 2.5
Big 10 - 1
CUSA - 1
Independent - .25
MAC - 1.5
Mountain West - 2.25
PAC 12 - 0 (this is probably a little high)
SEC - 1 (Probably could have put this at .75 and PAC at .25)
Sun Belt - 3


Add that up, and you get 18 of the 19 spots filled, leaving MSU as the very last team to get slotted into a bowl game if they get to 5 wins. So basically Saturday is for bowl eligibility for those of you that care.

Going to be really interesting to see which .25 of a team makes it from several of the conferences though.

ETA: Well nevermind. If JMU is included then we will miss it by one spot.

 

[Dawgg]

Welp, JoMo blew it. EMU beat Akron and Northern Illinois beat WMU.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

My math looks like this: 6-6, we bowling.

 

[BELdog]

None of this matters because we are going to finish 6-6 with a last second touchdown to beat Ole Miss. Will Rogers to Tulu Griffin. Write it down.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

None of this matters because we are going to finish 6-6 with a last second touchdown to beat Ole Miss. Will Rogers to Tulu Griffin. Write it down.

 

[CoastTrash]

None of this matter bc we lose to Usm. 4-8

 

[vhdawg]

Where do James Madison and Jacksonville State come into this analysis? Do they get in before the 5-7 APR teams?