The teams that participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision earn the right to compete in a series of post-season games called bowl games. As of 2024, there are 42 bowl games (not counting the College Football Playoff National Championship), and all are contractually obligated to offer bids to specific conferences, a situation known as a "tie-in". The "top" six bowl games ("New Year's Six") in the nation select their teams as part of the College Football Playoff (CFP), which was put into place for a minimum of 12 years, beginning with the 2014 season. Prior to 2014, the top five games in the country were chosen under the system known as the Bowl Championship Series. The bowls outside of the CFP have individual contracts with the conferences to offer preferential bids to teams from those conferences. As long as teams are bowl eligible, they may be selected by these bowls to meet these contracts.

College Football Playoff

The College Football Playoff consists of seven bowls: the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, and the College Football Playoff National Championship. First round games are played at the home stadium of the highest seed.

Twelve schools are selected for the playoff. The top five conference champions in the CFP rankings receive automatic bids. No conference will have an automatic bid. A conference must have a minimum of eight members for its champion to be eligible for a guaranteed bid.

"New Year's Six" bowl games

The New Year's Six bowl games make up the CFP quarterfinals and semifinals.

GamesFirst gameCapital One Orange Bowl1935Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic1937Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential1902Allstate Sugar Bowl1935Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl1968VRBO Fiesta Bowl1971

*The top Group of Five champion will be placed into one of the At-Large spots, if they are not selected to be in the CFP.

Bowl Championship Series

From 1998 to 2013, the national champion was determined on the field by the Bowl Championship Series. The Bowl Championship Series consisted of five games, the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, and Sugar Bowl, as well as the BCS Championship Game. A composite system of computer rankings and human polls was used to rank the teams in the Division I–Football Bowl Subdivision. As with the College Football Playoff, the BCS consisted the champions of major conferences, at-large teams, and occasionally Notre Dame or teams from mid-major conferences. Consideration was given to historic associations between the conferences and the bowl games themselves. Tie-ins still apply, unless a team obligated to a certain bowl game is selected for the BCS Championship Game.

Other bowl games The bowls that are not part of the CFP have contractual ties to specific conferences. For the 2019–2020 bowl season, all bowls have at least two tie-ins, meaning that there are no at-large spots open in these bowls, assuming that all conferences produce enough bowl eligible teams. Many bowls also have contingency contracts to offer spots to other specific conferences should their first choice not be eligible. If any slot cannot be filled by a contracted conference at all, then the spot becomes open, and the bowl can offer the slot to any eligible team.

To be eligible, a team must have at least as many wins against FBS opponents as it has total losses in the regular season (excluding the conference championship game), except that a team may count one win against an FCS team that has given out at least 56.7 full scholarships per year over the past two years. (The number 56.7 comes from 90% of the pre-settlement limit of 63 full scholarships that an FCS team was allowed to have.) The exclusion of conference championship games was added after UCLA, which was the Pac-12 South representative in 2011, was 6–6 and lost the conference championship game that they participated only because of USC, which won the division that year, was on NCAA probation. The NCAA granted UCLA a waiver, and the exception appeared the following year, where the rule was used by Georgia Tech, the only eligible team among the three tied teams in the Coastal Division that was eligible for postseason because of NCAA probation, was also 6–6 and lost the conference championship game .)

If, as happened in 2015, there are more bowl game openings than eligible teams, then additional teams can become eligible. Teams are divided into four groups, which are added one at a time until there are enough teams to fill all of the bowls.The groups are: A team that does not have a "counted" win against an FCS team, but beat an FCS team that did not meet the 90% scholarship requirement, and would have been bowl eligible had that game counted. A team that plays 13 games in its regular season (excluding conference championship games, as that was previously referenced; a 13th game is possible if a team plays at Hawaii) and has a 6–7 record, since six wins is normally bowl eligible. A team in the second year of an FCS to FBS transfer "probationary period" that would have been eligible had it been a full FBS member. If there are still bowl openings remaining, enough teams with 5–7 or 5–6 counted records to fill the remaining spots become eligible. These are taken in order of the teams' most recent four-year football Academic Progress Rates (APRs), with ties broken by their one-year football APRs, starting with the most recent and working backwards. .

Note that, once all of the bowl bids have been accepted, should a team have to withdraw, the bowl's organizer may choose any team not serving a postseason ban to replace it, regardless of its record or APR. In 2024, when Marshall withdrew from the Independence Bowl, that bowl selected Louisiana Tech to replace it, even though its APR was among the lowest among 5–7 teams.

Records vs. selection order The contracts specify that the respective bowl committees receive a certain choice of teams. The selection order lists shown below (No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, etc.) indicate only the order in which the respective bowl committees make their selections. The choices are typically not predicated on end-of-season rankings or actually final regular season records/standings. For example, a bowl with the "# 3 pick" from a particular conference does not mean necessarily it has to select the "third place team" from that conference. When it becomes that committee's turn to pick, it may pick any of the remaining teams from that conference (with respect to the aforementioned eligibility rules detailed above).

A committee may select one team over another due to geographical proximity, travel ability for the fanbase, or other factors. Bowls may choose to "skip" teams in order to avoid regular season rematches, or perhaps bowl rematches from the previous season. In various cases, bowls have embraced a particular team(s) participating in same bowl in two consecutive seasons, but may shy away from inviting them for a third consecutive season. However, in most cases, the order loosely follows the general order of the regular season records/rankings.

Some conferences have special selection parameters written into their contracts with specific bowls—for example, the Citrus Bowl is contractually obligated to select the winningest Big Ten and SEC teams that do not make a CFP game, or a team within one win of the winningest in its conference. The MAC's bowl contracts require that both division champions, if eligible, receive bids to one of its five contracted bowls.

Order of selection Teams must be bowl-eligible to be selected for a bowl game. Should a conference not have enough eligible teams to meet their obligations, the bowls at the end of the selection process are free to choose a replacement team from among any remaining bowl-eligible teams that are not already committed to a bowl game. If a conference has multiple teams chosen for the CFP/New Year's Six games, the remaining bowls still select in the same order. For example, if two Pac-12 teams are in the CFP, the Alamo Bowl would then have the third (and not second) selection from the Pac-12, and all remaining bowls would also shift accordingly. This increases the likelihood that the conference will not be able to provide enough teams to meet its tie-in obligations.

American Athletic Conference

Guaranteed Bids: The Military Bowl The Fenway Bowl The Armed Forces Bowl (even years) or the Hawaii Bowl (odd years) The Independence Bowl (2022)

Four Bids from the following: The Birmingham Bowl The Gasparilla Bowl The First Responder Bowl The Boca Raton Bowl The Frisco Bowl The Cure Bowl The Myrtle Beach Bowl The New Mexico Bowl

Atlantic Coast Conference

NOTE: Selections made with schools, bowls, and conference office, no order of selection outside of NY6 bowls, then tier #1 bowls, then tier #2 bowls

Tier No. 1 The Pop-Tarts Bowl versus Big 12 The Gator Bowl versus SEC The Duke's Mayo Bowl versus SEC (odd-numbered years) or Big Ten (even-numbered years) The Sun Bowl versus Pac-12 The Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl versus Big Ten The Holiday Bowl versus Pac-12 The Fenway Bowl versus the American Athletic The Military Bowl versus the American Athletic

Tier #2 The Gasparilla Bowl versus SEC or AAC or Pac-12 The Birmingham Bowl versus SEC or AAC The First Responder Bowl versus Big XII or C-USA or AAC

Big 12 Conference

No. 1 The Alamo Bowl versus Pac-12. No. 2 The Pop-Tarts Bowl versus ACC. No. 3 The Texas Bowl versus SEC. No. 4 The Liberty Bowl versus SEC. No. 5 The Cactus Bowl versus Big Ten No. 7. No. 6 The First Responder Bowl or Armed Forces Bowl No. 7 The Independence Bowl versus Pac 12.

Big Ten Conference

If additional B1G teams are selected to participate in the College Football Playoff, all other bowl-eligible teams move up one spot in the order.

2026 Bowl Tie-ins Pick Name Location OpposingConference OpposingPick 1 College Football Playoff Misc.All FBS Conferences N/A2 Citrus Bowl Orlando, Florida SEC 23 ReliaQuest Bowl Tampa, Florida3-84 Las Vegas Bowl Paradise, Nevada Former Pac-1225 Music City Bowl Nashville, Tennessee SEC3-86 Pinstripe Bowl New York City ACC 5-77 Cactus Bowl Tempe, Arizona Big 126

Bowl selection procedures Although the pick order usually corresponds to the conference standings, the bowls are not required to make their choices strictly according to the win–loss records; many factors influence bowl selections, especially the likely turnout of the team's fans. Picks are made after CFP selections; the bowl with the #2 pick will have the first pick of the remaining teams in the conference.

For all non-College Football Playoff partners, the bowl partner will request a Big Ten team. The Big Ten will approve or assign another team based on internal selection parameters.

Conference USA

Guaranteed Bowl Bid The New Orleans Bowl versus Sun Belt The Hawaii Bowl versus MWC (even years)

C-USA will get 4 or 5 additional bowl bids from these 12 bowls (decision made in conjunction with ESPN, who owns these bowls): The 68 Ventures Bowl The Frisco Bowl The New Mexico Bowl The Gasparilla Bowl The First Responder Bowl The Boca Raton Bowl The Armed Forces Bowl The Birmingham Bowl The Salute to Veterans Bowl The Cure Bowl The Fenway Bowl The Myrtle Beach Bowl

Mid-American Conference

Guaranteed Bowl Bid: The Bahamas Bowl versus Conference USA The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl versus Mountain West The Arizona Bowl versus Mountain West The Puerto Rico Bowl versus an at-large opponent

2 Bids from the following: The Boca Raton Bowl The Salute to Veterans Bowl The Cure Bowl The Frisco Bowl The 68 Ventures Bowl The Myrtle Beach Bowl The New Mexico Bowl

Mountain West Conference

The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl versus MAC. The New Mexico Bowl versus C-USA. The Arizona Bowl versus MAC. The Hawaii Bowl versus AAC or C-USA.