Mobile version. Acronyms are explained below. All times Eastern and PM, except where obvious. As of 12/14/2024 03:48:07 PM -0800.

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

Overall:
Scores:

?=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.
Note the numbers next to the playoff reflect each team's seed and not its ranking. See below for more details on seeding.

Old predictions
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Above table reflects all teams that are currently bowl eligible as of when this page was last updated. There are 35 non-playoff bowls, so 70 are needed to fill those bowls. Including the playoff, 82 eligible teams are needed. This season, only Kennesaw State is not eligible.

As of the 2024 season, the College Football Playoff has expanded to 12 teams. The Comittee will continue to rank the teams. The field will consist of the five highest ranked conference champions and then the next seven highest ranked teams. The four highest ranked conference champions are given byes to the quarterfinals. In the first round, the higher seed will host the lower seed either at home or at a designated alternate location.

The six playoff bowls (Peach, Cotton, Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange) will now rotate being quaterfinal and semifinal sites. For the 2024 season, the Orange and Cotton Bowls will host semifinals, rotating to the Fiesta and Peach in 2025. When the Sugar and Rose are quarterfinals, the SEC and Big Ten champions will appear in those games if they are in the top four.

 Future championship game sites:
2024: Atlanta, GA
2025: Miami Gardens, FL

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

Overall eligibility: In the 2022-2023 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. 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. Note that these criteria apply in order, and a particular bowl game may use a team from this "pool" once every four years.
1. The "counting 1 FCS win" rule only applies if the FCS team in question uses 80% 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 6-7.
3. Teams that are in their final year of reclassifying to FBS and have a 6-6 record or better. (James Madison this year.)
4. From here, teams in order of their multi-year Academic Progress Rate (APR).

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. It's worth noting that in practice there seem to be three tiers of games, not two, with the Gator, Holiday, and Pop-Tarts Bowls making up the first tier. It also appears that Notre Dame may not be able to jump ACC teams with better or equal records.
The Big Ten selection process has its own page.
The Big 12 selection order. Extra non-former-Pac-12 Big 12 teams can also appear in ESPN Events bowl games.
For present and former Pac-12 teams, any team not appearing in the playoff will still appear in a bowl that was aligned with the Pac-12.
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 four guarunteed slots for 2024 (Armed Forces, Independence, Military, and Fenway), plus 4 spots in the Birmingham, Cure, Gasparilla, Boca Raton, Frisco, First Responder, New Mexico, or Myrtle Beach Bowls. "AAC #1/2/3/4" is used on the table above to indicate that those bowls will take AAC teams, but not neccessarily over any of other bowls. This season, the AAC also has backup agreements with the Liberty and Sports Bowls.
The Mountain West selection process is here. Their notes mention that for any ESPN Events bowls they're not otherwise contracted with, it will "likely be held in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex". This implies the Armed Forces, First Responder, and Frisco Bowls.
I haven't been able to find an official source for the MAC. For now, I am using this.
The Sun Belt bowl notes are here. They are guarunteed five spots, and can back up any ESPN Events bowl or the Independence Bowl.
The Conference USA bowl agreements are here.

ESPN owns and operates the following bowls: Armed Forces Bowl, Bahamas Bowl, Birmingham Bowl, Boca Raton Bowl, Camellia Bowl, Cure Bowl, Fenway Bowl, First Responder Bowl, Frisco Bowl, Gasparilla Bowl, Hawaii Bowl, Las Vegas Bowl, Myrtle Beach Bowl, New Mexico Bowl, Potato 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.