On Thursday, the NCAA enacted a policy allowing teams with records of 5-7 this season to play in bowl games if there are not enough six-win teams.
A day after the announcement that Texas A&M’s football team was withdrawing from the December 31 Gator Bowl due to COVID and injury-related issues, the NCAA announced Thursday that it would allow another team to fill the now-empty slot to face Wake Forest, with Rutgers first in line according to the existing policy. Rutgers, which finished 5-7 this season, would be allowed to participate in the game through an NCAA policy that allows teams with sub-.500 records to play in bowl games if there are not enough teams with at least six wins to fill the available spots in bowl games. Once the policy is enacted, teams with the highest Academic Progress Rate scores get the first opportunity to fill the spot, and the NCAA said Rutgers is at the top of that list among 5-7 teams. The NCAA football oversight committee decided to enact the policy Thursday after Texas A&M announced in a statement Wednesday that because of COVID positives, injury issues and players opting out of the bowl game or transferring schools, they would not be able to field a full team of scholarship players to compete in the game.
