I ran the numbers and show them all below. Double checked my math against the various sites that are all listing 63 bowl eligible teams, including UConn. Here is what I am getting:
- There are 65 teams with at least 6 wins
- James Madison is ineligible
- Marshall has 6 wins, but two are against FCS opponents (you can only count one for bowl eligibility
- For the sake of argument we won't include UConn
- That leaves 62 teams with at least 6 wins and a spot locked up
- There are 82 bowl spots, so there are 20 spots remaining
Remaining Teams:
There are 21 five win teams, 18 four win teams, and 1 three win team (Army who has 3 left to play*).
That makes 39 teams other than UConn with at least 4 wins and two games left to play for those 20 spots.
There are four matchups of teams with at least 5 wins before the end of the year. That would guarantee at least 4 more spots gone.
This would make 16 spots left over for 35 other teams
We need 19 teams to fail.
Five Win Teams: Marshall, BYU, Texas Tech, Michigan State, Southern Miss, Rice, Middle TN, UAB, Memphis, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Buffalo, Bowling Green, Miami, App State, Georgia Southern, Florida Atlantic, Utah State, Arkansas, Ball State
Four Win Teams: New Mexico State, Kent State, West Virginia, Miami (OH), Vanderbilt, LA Monroe, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, UTEP, Rutgers, Missouri, Auburn, Central Michigan, Florida International, UNLV, Iowa State, Arizona, Army
*Note on Army - including them but two of their wins are against FCS so they may already by ineligible