See which college football teams are bowl eligible after Week 9 and who’s one win away from securing a postseason spot in the 2025 bowl season.
Every college football program reached the halfway point of its 2025 regular season schedule, and 24 teams already punched their ticket to bowl eligibility. This is your guide to tracking which teams will reach the postseason through the end of the regular season.College Football Bowl Eligibility Criteria
The future of the College Football Playoff is in question but when it comes to this year’s postseason, here’s a quick overview.
The final day of the 2025 regular season is on Nov. 29 with bowl games expected to be announced on Dec. 7. Bowl season begins Dec. 13 and ends Jan. 19. The postseason consists of 35 traditional bowl games, four CFP first round games, four quarterfinal games, two semifinal games and one national championship game. That adds to up to 46 matchups with 82 FBS programs set to play beyond conference championship weekend.
To qualify for bowl eligibility, teams must win at least six games, and they can only count one win against FCS opponents. If there are too many bowl-eligible teams, some will be left out of postseason play.
If there are not enough bowl-eligible teams, the first two spots would go to Delaware and Missouri State, which are transitioning from the FCS, assuming they satisfy the bowl-eligibility criteria. After that, it will come down to Academic Progress Rate scores for teams one win away from bowl eligibility, which is why in some years you see teams with a 5-7 record competing in bowl games.
Before the countdown to bowl season even began, one program was already eliminated. Akron was ruled ineligible for postseason play in May due to a failing Academic Progress Rate score during the 2023-24 season.Bowl Eligible Teams (24)
Fourteen programs became bowl eligible during Week 8 of the college football season including Alabama, Cincinnati, Georgia, Hawaii, Houston, James Madison, Missouri, North Texas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tulane, USF, Vanderbilt and Virginia.
The following programs secured at least six victories to become bowl eligible:
SEC (7) – Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt
Big Ten (3) – Indiana, Ohio State, Oregon
ACC (2) – Georgia Tech, Virginia
Big 12 (4) – BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, Texas Tech
Pac-12 (0) – None
American (5) – Memphis, Navy, North Texas, Tulane, USF
Mountain West (2) – Hawaii, UNLV
Sun Belt (1) – James Madison
MAC (0) – None
Conference USA (0) – None
Independents (0) – NoneEliminated From Bowl Eligibility (1)
The following programs are no longer eligible to participate in a bowl game.
