Week 12 College Football Bowl Bubble Watch
Posted by deaconcat08 on November 18, 2012
The most comprehensive analysis of the college football bowl bubble is back! For the fourth-straight year, I will be publishing weekly November columns analyzing which teams will get bowl bids and which will not. Below, I have written a report for every team that has yet to be declared either bowl eligible or ineligible. Each week this list will be updated and new odds will be provided for each team. Please note that these odds only represent the chances that a particular team will get enough wins to be eligible to receive a bowl bid. They do not represent the odds a team has for actually receiving a bid. This discrepancy likely won’t affect the bowl chances of most major conference teams, but sometimes a 6-6 record won’t be enough to a get bid from a non-BCS conference. However, you will see that I am currently predicting there to be exactly enough bowl eligible teams to fill all the available bowl slots. The teams are ordered in descending order of likelihood that they will become bowl eligible. As of now, there are 15 teams on the list with 7 predicted to attain bowl eligibility and 8 predicted to fall short. As of now, I’m projecting there to be 70 bowl eligible teams for 2012 (see full stats at the bottom of this entry). Keep in mind that there are a total of 70 bowl slots to be filled.
Good Side of the Bowl Bubble: Teams closing in on bowl bids (7):
West Virginia- Record: 5-5; Remaining Schedule: at Iowa State, vs. Kansas; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 87% (previous odds: 97%, 92%)
Central Michigan- Record: 5-6; Remaining Schedule: at UMass ; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 65% (previous odds: 35%, 42%)
Virginia Tech- Record: 5-6; Remaining Schedule: vs. UVA; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 62% (previous odds: 65%, 60%)
Rice- Record: 5-6; Remaining Schedule: at UTEP; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 58% (previous odds: 46%, 46%)
Purdue- Record: 5-6; Remaining Schedule: vs. Indiana; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 55% (previous odds: 30%, 49%)
Baylor- Record: 5-5; Remaining Schedule: vs. Texas Tech, vs. Oklahoma State; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 54% (previous odds: 34%, 30%)
Michigan State- Record: 5-6; Remaining Schedule: at Minnesota; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 51% (previous odds: 87%, 87%)
Bad Side of the Bowl Bubble: Teams who will likely be home for the holidays (8):
Ole Miss- Record: 5-6; Remaining Schedule: vs. Miss. St.; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 43% (previous odds: 56%, 43%)
Troy- Record: 5-6; Remaining Schedule: at MTSU; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 42% (previous odds: 19%, 47%)
Marshall- Record: 5-6; Remaining Schedule: at East Carolina; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 41% (previous odds: 47%, 40%)
SMU- Record: 5-6; Remaining Schedule: vs. Tulsa; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 39% (previous odds: 49%, 51%)
Wake Forest- Record: 5-6; Remaining Schedule: vs. Vandy; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 38% (previous odds: 45%, 41%)
Missouri- Record: 5-6; Remaining Schedule: at Texas A & M; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 32% (previous odds: 39%, 55%)
Pittsburgh- Record: 4-6; Remaining Schedule: vs. Rutgers, at USF; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 31% (previous odds: 44%, 31%)
Connecticut- Record: 4-6; Remaining Schedule: at Louisville, vs. Cincinnati; Odds of Bowl Eligibility: 8% (previous odds: 3%, 8%)
Already Bowl Eligible (63): Clemson, Florida State, Duke, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech, TCU, Louisville, Rutgers, Nebraska, Michigan, Northwestern, Wisconsin, UCF, East Carolina, Tulsa, Notre Dame, Navy, Kent State, Ohio, Bowling Green, Northern Illinois, Toledo, Ball State, Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Nevada, Oregon, Stanford, Oregon State, UCLA, Southern California, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Texas A & M, LSU, Mississippi State, Arkansas State, UL-Monroe, MTSU, Western Kentucky, Utah State, LA Tech, San Jose State, Arizona (previous odds: 99%), NC State (previous odds: 95%), Cincinnati (previous odds: 93%), Oklahoma State (previous odds: 63%), Minnesota (previous odds: 55%), Vanderbilt (previous odds: 59%), Washington (previous odds: 99%), Brigham Young (previous odds: 98%), Air Force (previous odds: 96%, 91%), Arizona State (previous odds: 79%, 75%), Miami-FL (previous odds: 94%, 80%), Georgia Tech (previous odds: 32%, 58%), Syracuse (previous odds: 37%, 52%), UL-Lafayette (previous odds: 92%, 90%), Iowa State (previous odds: 64%, 62%)
Already Ineligible for a Bowl Game (46): North Carolina*, Boston College, Kansas, Ohio State*, Penn State*, Illinois, UAB, Memphis, Southern Miss, Tulane, UTEP, Army, Buffalo, UMass, Akron, Eastern Michigan, UNLV, Colorado State, Wyoming, Hawaii, California, Washington State, Colorado, Kentucky, Auburn, South Alabama, FAU, FIU, Idaho, New Mexico State, UTSA, Western Michigan (previous odds: 43%), New Mexico (previous odds: 28%), Temple (previous odds: 17%), Virginia (previous odds: 2%, 15%), Iowa (previous odds: 27%, 9%), Maryland (previous odds: 4%, 2%), Indiana (previous odds: 33%, 26%), Houston (previous odds: 48%, 44%), Arkansas (previous odds: 6%, 1%), Miami-OH (previous odds: 38%, 35%), South Florida (previous odds: 5%, 5%), Texas State (previous odds: 24%, 20%), North Texas (previous odds: 7%, 10%), Tennessee (previous odds: 69%, 48%), Utah (previous odds: 29%, 28%)
Current Stats:
Already Bowl Eligible: 63
Predicted to be Bowl Eligible: 7
Already Ineligible for a Bowl Game: 46
Predicted not to become Bowl Eligible: 8