While each of college football’s power conferences shares some responsibility for threatening some of the sport’s regionality, it was the Big Ten that went to the extreme, poaching four of the Pac-12’s westernmost schools. How does the expansion of the Big Ten to 18 teams affect the conference’s bowl tie-ins?
What Bowls Are Tied In With the Big Ten?
- Cheez-It Citrus Bowl (vs. SEC)
- ReliaQuest Bowl (vs. SEC)
- Duke’s Mayo Bowl (vs. ACC)
- Music City Bowl (vs. SEC)
- Pinstripe Bowl (vs. ACC)
- Guaranteed Rate Bowl (vs. Big 12)
- Quick Lane Bowl (vs. MAC)
Bowl Selection Process
The bowl selection process for the Big Ten likely isn’t completely finalized.
First, it’s college football’s biggest conference but only retains ties to seven bowls in 2024. But with two additional factors at play, that doesn’t mean only seven Big Ten teams will make bowl games.
According to The Action Network’s Brett McMurphy, former Pac-12 schools “likely will still play in Pac-12-affiliated bowls … and not in bowl tie-ins with their new conferences” for at least the next two seasons.
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This means that USC, Washington, Oregon, and UCLA — if bowl eligible — would likely go to a Pac-12-affiliated bowl game rather than one of the ones listed above tied to the Big Ten. Those bowl games are the Alamo, Holiday, Las Vegas, Sun, Los Angeles, and Independence bowls.
It’s early in the season, but UCLA will likely struggle to reach the six wins required to make a bowl game, so it’s possible the Bruins won’t factor into that discussion.
The other factor at play is that the College Football Playoff is not included in the above bowl tie-ins. So any Big Ten team that makes the College Football Playoff (and there will be multiple) will go to the postseason tournament rather than one of the above bowl games.
If there are still more than seven non-CFP bowl-eligible teams from the Big Ten, the conference will either send teams to currently unannounced bowls tied in with the conference or random overflow bowls.
College Football Playoff and the Big Ten
The College Football Playoff has to first be sorted out. The Big Ten champion will almost certainly have a top-four seed, assuming there’s not some sort of major upset in the title game that causes one of the Group of Five champions to be ranked higher in the final CFP poll.
Then, there’s a possibility that one or more other Big Ten teams get an at-large bid to the dance. If that happens, those teams won’t participate in traditional one-off bowl games. Based on what we know about the conferences, it’s incredibly likely that the Big Ten gets multiple CFP bids, perhaps as many as four of the 12 slots.
The number of at-large bids the Big Ten gets will have a direct effect on how many lesser bowl slots will be filled and which teams will fill them.
The former New Year’s Six bowls will rotate as quarterfinal and semifinal games over the life of the 12-team playoff. While those bowls may still follow loose affiliations, there are no rules about which teams will play in which bowls.
There’s no set order in how the lower-tier bowls are filled, so it could be a “free for all” as those bowls seek quality matchups, geographic considerations, or interesting storylines.
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