Mobile version. Acronyms are explained below. All times Eastern and PM, except where obvious. As of 11/15/2022 11:29:45 PM -0800.

Teams 6-6 or better that need at-large bids:

Overall: 20-18 (52.6%)
Scores: 7-74 (9.5%)

?=at-large because some conference couldn't fill its bids
* = Accepted invitation
** = Predicted correctly
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
1: Team meets one of the exception criteria, see the blurb about bylaw 18.7.2 below.

Old predictions
Past years: 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | Index

Above table reflects all teams that are currently bowl eligible as of when this page was last updated. 84 teams were needed to fill all available bids after the Frisco Football Classic was announced, allowing 6-7 Hawaii to become eligible. In addition, 5-7 Rutgers replaced Texas A&M in the Gator Bowl after bids were announced.

The introduction of the College Football Playoff in the 2014-2015 season changed a bunch of stuff. Below is a quick guide to the process and links to sources of information.

The College Football Playoff is a new system that includes a rotating set of six bowl games (the Peach, Cotton, Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange) plus a championship game. Each year, two of the games will host semi-final games, which will be seeded according to a committee. The winners of those games will meet in the championship game. The rotation of the games is as such for the semi-finals:
2014, 2017, 2020, 2023: Rose and Sugar
2015, 2018, 2021, 2024: Orange and Cotton
2016, 2019, 2022, 2025: Fiesta and Peach

When those games aren't hosting national semi-finals, they will be the home for conference champions and other teams not selected for the semi-finals. The default matchups are:
Rose: Big Ten #1 vs. Pac-12 #1
Sugar: SEC #1 vs. Big 12 #1
Orange: Highest-ranked ACC vs. the highest-ranked available team from the SEC, Big Ten, or Notre Dame
Cotton, Fiesta, and Peach: At-large selections or the "top team" from the Group of Five (which consists of the non-autobid conferences (the American, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt). These bowls can also host the Big Ten or SEC champions if they are not in the playoff when the Rose or Sugar bowls are part of the playoff.

Other rules:
1. Notre Dame can only appear twice as an at-large
2. If the ACC faces a rematch in the Orange Bowl, then the Orange can select the highest ranked available opponent (according to the committee) and the spurned team is placed elsewhere in the framework.
3. If a conference's champion is selected for the play-off, then the next highest ranked team from that conference assumes the berth, except in the Big 12, where the conference runner-up gets it.

Future championship game sites:
2022: Los Angeles, CA
2023: Houston, TX
2024: Las Vegas, NV
2025: TBD

"ACC #1" means "the first ACC team after the CFP selection process", not "the ACC champion".

Overall eligibility: The 2016-2017 NCAA Division I Manual (warning, PDF) bylaw 18.7.2 governs Division I FBS 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 FBS opponents. For the purposes of this record, a team is also allowed to count one FCS win as well. Note that it is no longer a requirement that all above .500 teams are selected before 6-6 teams. For 2013, the NCAA added what one might call the "UCLA and Georgia Tech" rule which basically boils down to: a) winning your conference title game makes you a "deserving team" and b) losing your title game does not affect your "deserving team" status.

In addition to deserving teams, bylaw 18.7.2 also spells out what will happen if there are not enough bowl eligible teams for the 40 bowl games. Note that these criteria apply in order, and a particular bowl game may use a team from this "pool" once every four years (effective 8/2012).
1. The "counting 1 FCS win" rule only applies if the FCS team in question uses 90% of available scholarships out of 63 (so 56.7 scholarships, as FCS allows partial scholarships), so the first criteria is that any FCS school counts for the 1-win.
2. Teams that finished 6-6 with two FCS wins. For 2021, there are no teams that meet this criterion.
3. Teams that finished 6-7 (this used to be the "UCLA rule" but conference championships can no longer make a team ineligible for a bowl).
5. Teams that are reclassifying to FBS and have a 6-6 record. There are no reclassifying teams for 2021.
6. Teams in the top 5 of the APR and with a 5-7 record. I don't have 2020-2021 data yet (and I'm not sure if there will be). For 2018-2019 data, the top five are: Washington, Mississippi, Northwestern, Air Force, and Clemson.

A new cycle began in 2020, which was of course immediately disrupted. Many of these changes are described here, and others are pieced together from various other sources.

The 2020-2025 ACC bowl agreements were announced in 2020 and pretty much abandon any sort of ranking criteria completely. The most important thing is that if the ACC's opponent in the Orange Bowl is from the Big Ten, it will also get a team in the Outback Bowl (I assume in place of the Big Ten).
The Big Ten selection process has its own page. The Citrus Bowl will pick an ACC team if the ACC faces a Big Ten team in the Orange Bowl (see below).
The Big 12 selection order.
For the Pac-12, I haven't been able to find an official source yet, but Jon Wilner is likely more reliable than the conference itself anyway. Note that the Pac-12 Championship Game loser won't make a repeat trip to Las Vegas for that bowl.
The SEC bowl selection order. Note that of the "pool of six", the Liberty is the first off if there's not enough teams.
The American bowl lineup. The American has 3 guarunteed slots for 2021 (Military, Hawaii, and Fenway), plus 4 slots in the Frisco, Cure, Boca Raton, Gasparilla, Birmingham, First Responder, or Myrtle Beach Bowls.
The Mountain West selection process is here.
I haven't been able to find an official source for the MAC. For now, I am using this. According to that source, the MAC will get 2 teams into the Cure, Myrtle Beach, New Mexico, Boca Raton, or Frisco Bowls.
The Sun Belt released their official bowl selection process here.
The Conference USA bowl agreements are here. Note that of the group just marked as "C-USA" the confernece will place 4-5 teams.
As far as independents other than Notre Dame go: this season, BYU is slotted into the Independence Bowl, Army can go to any ESPN bowl (likely the Armed Forces), and Liberty, New Mexico State, Connecticut, and Massachusetts do not have any tie-ins.

ESPN owns and operates the following bowls: Armed Forces Bowl, Birmingham Bowl, Bahamas Bowl, Boca Raton Bowl, Camellia Bowl, Potato Bowl, First Responder Bowl, Frisco Bowl, Gasparilla Bowl, Hawaii Bowl, Las Vegas Bowl, Myrtle Beach Bowl, New Mexico Bowl, and the Texas Bowl. Occasionally swaps occur for random reasons usually involving these games.

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