The Sun Belt Conference is working tirelessly to establish itself as one of the best Group of Five conferences in the country, a distinction that grows more important with expansion of the College Football Playoff.
How has conference realignment and the new postseason format affected the Sun Belt’s bowl tie-ins?
What Bowls Are Tied In With the Sun Belt?
The Sun Belt is contractually tied with the following bowls:
- R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl (vs CUSA)
- 68 Ventures Bowl (vs MAC)
The Sun Belt is also tied with the ESPN Group of Five bowls. ESPN gets the first, third, and fourth picks of its favorite Sun Belt teams. The New Orleans Bowl gets the second pick, while the 68 Ventures Bowl gets the fifth pick.
Here are the available ESPN Group of Five Bowls for which Sun Belt teams will be available for selection.
- Boca Raton Bowl (vs G5)
- Camellia Bowl (vs CUSA or MAC)
- Cure Bowl (vs G5)
- Frisco Bowl (vs G5)
- Myrtle Beach Bowl (vs AAC or MAC)
If the Sun Belt has additional bowl-eligible teams after each of the ESPN bowls are filled, the conference has loose ties with the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (against MAC or Mountain West) and New Mexico Bowl (against CUSA or Mountain West).
It’s highly unlikely the Sun Belt gets a team in each of these bowls, but there is theoretically no hard cap on the number of teams the conference can put in these overflow bowls, assuming the teams are bowl-eligible.
Bowl Selection Process
Not much has changed for the Group of Five bowl selection process from previous years, with one notable exception.
The first five Sun Belt teams will be selected in the order listed above, with the New Orleans Bowl and 68 Ventures Bowl getting the second and fifth picks, respectively, between the ESPN bowls.
Beyond that, Group of Five bowl selection is essentially a free-for-all. Bowls (and ESPN) want intriguing matchups, storylines, and favorable geography (to maximize ticket sales).
Every bowl-eligible Sun Belt team will be thrown in a pool with the rest of the Group of Five, and bowls will duke it out for the matchups they desire. However, there’s no telling how many bowls Sun Belt teams will attend or which bowls from the list those will be.
Due to the recent realignment, it’s possible that affiliations could shift before the end of the regular season.
College Football Playoff and the Sun Belt
But first, the College Football Playoff has to be sorted out.
In the past, this typically hasn’t meant much to the Group of Five, but this year, the highest-ranked Group of Five Conference Champion will automatically make the College Football Playoff, likely as a 12-seed.
This is important to the Sun Belt because Appalachian State and Coastal Carolina have the schedules and talent to be dark horses as the highest-ranked Group of Five Conference Champions.
If the Chanticleers or Mountaineers (or another Group of Five team) make the College Football Playoff, that team will follow that postseason path rather than play in a traditional bowl game.
MORE: Simulate the College Football Season With CFN’s College Football Playoff Predictor
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.
Teams in the College Football Playoff will follow a standard 12-team playoff system, with the first-round games (between teams ranked 5-12) being played at the home stadium of the higher seed and then the quarterfinals, semifinals, and championship game being played at neutral sites.
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