Mobile version. Acronyms are explained below. All times Eastern and PM, except where obvious. As of 12/02/2012 02:02:07 AM -0800.

Teams 6-6 or better that need at-large bids: Central Michigan (6-6), Iowa State (6-6)

Old predictions
Past years: 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | Index

BCS Selection Process for 2010-2014:
The order of selection for at-large bids is as follows: Fiesta, Sugar, Orange.
1. The top 2 teams go to the national title game and conference champs of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC go to their games.
2. The bowls that lose their automatic qualifiers get to replace them first. The bowl that would have the #1 team goes first if both teams lost their bowls. The first bowl may not take a team from the same conference as the #2 team without permission. In addition, the first year the Rose Bowl loses a team to the championship game and a non-BCS conference team qualifies, that team must go to the Rose.
3. The remaining bowls pick automatic qualifiers in this order: Fiesta, Sugar, and then Orange.
4. After the selections are made, the conferences (and Notre Dame) can adjust the pairings to take the following factors into account:
a) Whether the same team will be playing in the same bowl for two straight years
b) Whether the two teams played against each other in the regular season
c) Whether the two teams played each other in a bowl game last year
d) "Whether alternative pairings may have greater or lesser appeal to college football fans as measured by expected ticket sales for the bowls and by expected television interest, and the consequent financial impact on ESPN and the bowls."
The pairings cannot result in a situation that removes the Big Ten or Pac-12 champion from the Rose Bowl.

What is an automatic qualifier? Well, here are the criteria (in order):
1. You finish in the top two of the standings.
2. You are the champion of the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, or Southeastern Conference.
3. You are a the champion of C-USA, the MAC, the Mountain West, the Sun Belt, or the WAC and you:
a) Are ranked in the top 12
b) Or are in the top 16 and ranked above a team that qualifies under rule 2.
No more than one team meeting these provisions may get an auto-berth and the highest ranked team gets it.
4. Notre Dame will qualify if they are ranked 8th or higher.
5. If the 3rd ranked team has not earned an automatic berth by this point and there are less than 10 qualifiers, then that team gets it as long as no team in its conference is in the national title game. This team must be from an auto-qualifier conference.
6. If the 4th ranked team has not earned a berth by this point and there are less than 10 qualifiers, then that team gets it as long as no team in its conference is in the national title game. This team must be from an auto-qualifier conference.

If there are fewer than 10 automatic qualifiers, then any team in the top 14 with at least 9 wins can be picked as an at-large team. No more than two teams from any conference can be selected. If no team in the top 14 qualifies, then the pool expands to the top 18 teams, and so on in blocks of 4 teams.
Source: http://www.bcsfootball.org/news/story?id=4819597

Overall eligibility: The 2012-2013 NCAA Division I Manual (warning, PDF) bylaw 18.7.2 governs Division I-A football eligibility. The NCAA defines a "deserving team" as a team with an equal number of wins and losses, i.e, a record of 6-6 and better against DI-A opponents. For the purposes of this record, a team is also allowed to count one DI-AA win as well. Note that it is no longer a requirement that all above .500 teams are selected before 6-6 teams.

The NCAA has spelled out the criteria for exceptions to bowl qualification rules. They are:
1. Teams that finished 6-6 with one win versus a FCS opponent.
2. Teams that finished 6-6 with two FCS wins.
3. Teams that finished 6-7, where the 7th loss was in a conference championship game (a.k.a the "UCLA rule").
4. Teams that played 13 regular season games but finished 6-7.
5. Teams that are reclassifying to FBS and have a 6-6 record (so this year, South Alabama, Texas-San Antonio, Texas State, and Massachusetts).
6. Teams in the top 5 of the APR and with a 5-7 record. This year, those teams are Northwestern, Duke, Boise State, Ohio State, and Northern Illinois.
These provisions are in effect for the 2012 through 2015 seasons. During that span, a particular bowl may only dip into this pool of teams only once.

It really does appear that Notre Dame does not have any non-BCS bowl tie-ins this year. They're still eligible as an at-large, obviously.
The ACC bowl selection criteria are buried in the massive media guide (warning: huge PDF) on page 16. Bowls select in the order given, and can take the team with the best available record or a team with one less conference win, with the exception of the Chick-fil-a Bowl, which can take a different team if it is ranked at least 5 spots higher in the final BCS standings.
The Big Ten bowl selection order is buried in their massive media guide on page 41.
The Pac-12 bowl selection order, on page 131.
The SEC bowl selection order, on page 34.
The Big East bowl selection order, on page 10.
The Mountain West media guide has their selection order on page 33/15.
The WAC media guide lists its only bowl this year: the Potato Bowl, on page 20.
The MAC media guide lists its selection procedures on page 8.
The Big 12 selection order.
The Sun Belt media guide actually has all of the bowl selection positions on page 17. Most of them seem to be right?
The C-USA media guide lists their bowls and criteria, such as they are, on page 150.

1: Sun Belt to the rescue! For 2010-2013, the Sun Belt will be the first source of back up teams for the following bowls: St. Petersburg, BBVA Compass, and the Little Casear's Bowl.
2: Primary backup for either conference is the 7th pick from Conference USA.
4: The Big East has some wacky agreement with the Liberty, Compass, and Beef 'O' Brady's Bowls. It seems like this year they will only send teams to the last two (at least that's what the other conferences involved seem to assume). Most other sites are interpreting this as something the Liberty will do if there aren't enough SEC teams, so I will roll with that for this year. (In fact, I can't find any mention of the Big East on the Liberty Bowl's site at all.) Update 12/4/2011: It looks like this will happen. This is the best reference I can find for it.
5: The Russell Athletic (formerly Champs Sports) Bowl can only take Notre Dame once during the current 4-year agreement (2010-2013). They used this option in 2011 so they cannot select them again in 2012 or 2013.
6: In 2012, the MAC acts as a backup for the New Mexico Bowl, Compass Bowl, Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl, and the Heart of Dallas Bowl. The first three likely have a priority over the Heart of Dallas Bowl.
7: Conference USA will act as the primary source of backup teams for the Military Bowl.

?=at-large because some conference couldn't fill its bids
* = Accepted invitation
** = Predicted correctly
^ = It's still the Peach Bowl to me, but I finally felt I should change it
A team in bold indicates that I predicted the winner correctly
A team in italics means that team won the game, but was not who I picked
A bold score means that I actually managed to pick the score correctly|
A team that is underlined is the predicted winner

Schedule sources: CollegeFootballPoll, Matt Sarz, conference media guides (see above), and individual bowl websites.