Its been a crazy college football season so far, so the NCAA figured that it would add to the ridiculousness by announcing a new criteria for five-win teams looking to play in a bowl—and the teams who’ve been shitty on the field better not be shitty in the classroom, too, or they ain’t going bowling.
With at least two 5-7 teams—and as many as five—set to earn bowls this season even though they won’t reach the six-win threshold, the NCAA announced that the new criteria will be, wait for it, the Academic Progress Rate of those teams sitting with a losing record.
Without enough 6-6 teams, remaining bowl bids will be filled by 5-7 teams based on highest Academic Progress Rate. pic.twitter.com/D5iuQKkuqr
— NCAA Football (@NCAAFootball) November 30, 2015
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That’s right, it’ll come down to grades to determine some of the this year’s games, meaning we could be left with both shitty and rare matchups.
According to SaturdayTradition, here’s the current top-5 in the scenario, which includes ties, based off of the school’s APR:
985 — Nebraska (5-7)
976 — Missouri (5-7)
976 — Kansas State (5-6)
975 — Minnesota (5-7)
975 — San Jose State (5-7)
973 — Illinois (5-7)
973 — Rice (5-7)
I get that college football players are student-athletes and the NCAA wants to prove that term’s worth, but this is a dumb way to figure out matchups for postseason play. I mean, shouldn’t it come down to strength of schedule, bad losses, etc.? I guess an A- in the classroom means more to a football game than, say, a win over a ranked Power Five team.
Whatever, I’ll just skip over the crappy games these teams play in anyway.
[H/T SaturdayTradition]