Three schools are ineligible for postseason play in 2014, but more could be added to the postseason ban list. Idaho became the second team to be banned from the postseason next year due to low APR scores, joining UNLV. Penn State is entering year three of a postseason ban as part of the NCAA sanctions dropped in 2012. According to a report by Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com on Saturday, at least three more schools could be added to the list of APR casualties, which starts to take a dent in the total of teams hoping to play in a postseason bowl game next season.
But is the bowl schedule really at risk? Probably not. Every bowl spot should be filled, but the possibility of having to dive deeper into the pool to find teams could be a realistic scenario.
There will be 78 bowl spots to fill 39 bowl games in 2014. There were 79 bowl-eligible teams in 2013, including UNLV. As noted by Dodd, an average of just under 74 bowl-eligible teams per year over the last four seasons means the bowls are waking a thin line when it comes to having schools able to fill every spot. Conferences have had trouble filling all of their respective bowl spots in various bowl games, but there has not been a year where all bowl spots were unable to be filled before having to go to Plan B or Plan C.
If there are not enough bowl-eligible teams through normal standards (six wins), the bowls can move to invite teams with 5-7 records if needed. The eligible 5-7 teams would still be ranked by APR scores, with bowls required to go down the ranking. It is far from the most desirable method of course, but with 125 FBS teams and only a handful of schools failing to meet the APR standards, every bowl spot would be filled.
But the other problem here is pretty simple. Maybe there are too many bowl games.