NY6 Bowl

[EM_Puma]

I'm trying to understand who and how the contestants for the NY6 Bowls are selected. According to Wikipedia, it's the College Football Playoff Committee, which currently consists of

[EM_Puma]

I didn't get any warm and fuzzies from looking at that committee. Here are the teams selected:

"Overall, 12 teams are selected each football season for these major, top tier bowls. These are required to include the champions of the "Power Five" conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC). In addition, the highest-ranked champion from the "Group of Five" conferences (The American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt) is guaranteed a berth if the group's top team is not in the playoff."

So 6 of the 12 are champions.

"Using the final CFP rankings, the selection committee seeds and pairs the top four teams and determines the participants for the other four non-playoff New Year's Six bowls that are not hosting the semifinals that year. These four non-playoff bowls are also referred to as the Selection Committee bowl games. These six games focus on the top 12 teams in the rankings; to date during the College Football Playoff era (2014 through 2019 seasons), of the 72 teams to play in a New Year's Six game, only eight have been ranked lower than 12th."

So if we end up at least 12th in the final CFP rankings, which come out beginning on Nov 24th, we should be in a good, but not perfect position?

[snoscythe]

Right now, the top 4 are the same in both polls: Alabama (SEC), Ohio State (Big10), ND (ACC), and Clemson (ACC).

I assume that either ND or Clemson will fall from the top 4 after the ACC championship game, and will be replaced by another SEC team (Florida or Tex.A&M). If that is the case, we will have only three league champions in the playoff, so there will be three league champions taking spots from the remaining 8 openings. It is very possible that the Big XII and/or PAC12 won't have their champion in the top 12 this season--right now Oregon is at 11/12, and OkSt is at 13/14.

If that's the case, that leaves five available slots BYU would be hoping to land, but 7 "top-12" teams to choose from, so two teams at a minimum from the top-12 would be left out.


In a season where all of these conferences and teams are bleeding money and cutting athletic department budgets to the bone, I have a hard time picturing the committee selecting BYU over conference-affiliated teams and letting BYU take their entire bowl game payout without sharing it with other schools. I think they will use the "who have they played?" card as a pretext to skip over BYU, but that's just cynical old me.

[EM_Puma]

In a season where all of these conferences and teams are bleeding money and cutting athletic department budgets to the bone, I have a hard time picturing the committee selecting BYU over conference-affiliated teams and letting BYU take their entire bowl game payout without sharing it with other schools. I think they will use the "who have they played?" card as a pretext to skip over BYU, but that's just cynical old me.

Good point and that would be a tragedy if that's how it goes down. That's why I have suggested that BYU makes (if undefeated) such a commotion about not being in the championship series that CFP Selection Committee extends the NY6 option to keep us quiet. In reality, if the scenario you note happens, BYU should file a lawsuit.

[EM_Puma]

Great SI article that explains a little more detail. We're fortunate this year that the Rose and Sugar bowls will host the CFP. Both of those are contract bowls (Rose to B1G/PAC12 & Sugar to SEC/Big12), which means this is one of the years that there are more at-large openings.

https://www.si.com/college/byu/news/whe ... s-six-bowl

Here was the best comment: "Since the NY6 bids depend on which conferences make the playoff, we don't know exactly where BYU will need to be ranked to qualify for a NY6 at-large bid. However, every team ranked #9 or better has been invited to a NY6 game since 2014. In other words, nine is the magic number where BYU needs to finish this season ranked."

So, as long as the CFP Selection Committee does not list us outside the top 12 on 11/24, then we stand a good chance of making a NY6 if we are undefeated. That is when we'll know if "the big SCREW" is on by the CFP to exclude BYU.

I was left with one additional question from the article. If the way things fell out from losses by certain teams in the coming weeks and Cincinnati did a '84 BYU" and found itself in the top 4 and qualified for the CFP, would another G5 have to be appointed for the auto G5 slot? If that's the case, then we definitely want Cincinnati to lose a game if the teams in front of them stumble.

[EM_Puma]

Here's what ESPN's Heather Dinich reported today about BYU:
https://www.espn.com/college-football/i ... contenders

[Sharper]

Yeah, being in the top 12 makes it possible, but realistically, BYU needs to be in the top 10 or even 8th or 9th in order to be sure of an at-large spot, due to the possibilities of a conference champ or other team from above getting an available spot instead of the #11 & #12 teams.

If the Coach's and AP polls have BYU still 8th come committee selection time, I think they'll have a tough time justifying pushing us out of the top 10.

For what it's worth, in 2019 #1-7 were the same between the AP and the CFP, 8&9 were reversed, 10&11 were reversed, everyone else in the top 25 was within two spots of the other poll.

On the other hand, for non-P5s in 2019, Memphis (12-2), Cincinnati (11-3), and Boise (12-2) topped out at 18, 19, and 20.

On the third hand, when Boise went to the Fiesta bowl as the G5 rep, they were 11-2 and #21 in 2014, but back under the BCS system in 2010 were 13-0 and #6.

[snoscythe]

I was left with one additional question from the article. If the way things fell out from losses by certain teams in the coming weeks and Cincinnati did a '84 BYU" and found itself in the top 4 and qualified for the CFP, would another G5 have to be appointed for the auto G5 slot? If that's the case, then we definitely want Cincinnati to lose a game if the teams in front of them stumble.

No. The two semifinal games for the CFP are NY6 bowls, so if Cincy lands in the CFP that's the NY6 slot for the G5 team.

[EM_Puma]

Hans and Scotty, on AM 1280, both believe if BYU were undefeated at the end of the season that they would make a NY6, but both feel that the CFP Selection Committee would show them who is boss and pit both BYU and Cincinnati in one bowl game facing each other.

Not to take anything whatsoever from Cincinnati, but I can't believe they would like to find that scenario come true any more than any BYU fan. It would be a great matchup, but it just happens that we, like them, would like to play one of the P5 top ranked teams.

How incredible it would be though to have two non-P5 teams in the NY6 bowls that had never played and/or defeated any P5 teams that season.