BC Bowl Eligibility Update: Your Saturday Rooting Guide

We’re down to what is (for most teams, anyway) the final weekend of the college football regular season, and things have simplified quite a bit for the Eagles’ bowl chances.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been following the numbers on what it would take for the Eagles to make a bowl game at 5-7. With just a few teams left playing for bowl eligibility, and the Eagles with a clear spot in the selection order, we’re able to put together a clear rooting guide.

Here’s the list of teams that could still jump a 5-7 BC as of earlier this week:

Of these teams, Akron, Arizona State, and Texas all lost and are eliminated from contention. Miami (OH), NC State, Southern Miss, and TCU all won, and are bowl eligible.

That means two more teams need to lose for BC to be one of the top 80 teams available for the 80 bowl slots.

Here are the teams that have yet to finish their season, with the teams BC needs to lose in bold — once two of these teams are eliminated, the Eagles will clinch a bowl berth:

• Purdue (3-8) @ Indiana (5-6), 12pm
• Rutgers (2-9) @ Maryland (5-6), 12pm
• AK State (6-4) @ LA Lafayette (4-6)*, 12pm
......OR LA Lafayette @ LA Monroe (4-7) on 12/3, 3pm
• Mississippi State (4-7) @ Ole Miss (5-6), 3:30pm
• Navy (8-2) @ SMU (5-6), 3:30pm
• Duke (4-7**) @ Miami (7-4), 3:30pm
• S Alabama*** (5-5, must lose twice) @ Idaho (6-4), 3:30pm
......AND S Alabama vs. NM State (3-7) on 12/3, 1pm
• Charlotte (4-7) @ UT-San Antonio (5-6), 7pm
• UMass (2-9) @ Hawaii (5-7), 11pm

*LA Lafayette has two games left and will be eliminated with one loss
**Duke would advance over BC at 5-7 due to a higher APR, which is why they need to lose
***South Alabama has two games left and needs to lose both to be eliminated

Of course, the Eagles can make it even more simple — just beat Wake Forest, and no scoreboard watching required.