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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. In 2014, for the first time in the history of Division I-A/FBS football, there will be a playoff to determine the national champion. In addition to the four team playoff, there are 36 bowl games contractually obligated to offer bids to specific conferences in the 2014-15 NCAA Football Bowl Division season. As long as teams are bowl eligible, they may be selected by these bowls to meet these contracts.

BCS games
Prior to the 2014 football season, the Bowl Championship Series was a subset of contracted bowls which 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. At the end of the season, the top two ranked teams met in the championship game; the remaining eight slots were filled by the champions of the six Automatic Qualifying Conferences(the Big Ten Conference, Pacific-12 Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference, Southeastern Conference, Big 12 Conference, and American Athletic Conference) and up to four "at-large" selections who finished the season ranked in the top 14 in the BCS rankings. The highest-ranked champion of a non-AQ conference also received an automatic berth if ranked in the top 12 or ranked in the top 16 and higher than at least one AQ conference champion. The at-large selections could be granted to any FBS team, even those that aren't members of the six AQ conferences, though no conference could have more than two teams in a BCS bowl in any given year.

Even in the five BCS bowls, consideration was given to historic associations between the conferences and the bowl games themselves. Tie-ins still applied, unless a team obligated to a certain bowl game was selected for the BCS Championship Game. In that case, their slot was filled by an at-large school. Any bowl that lost a contracted team to the Championship Game got first pick of the eligible at-large schools. In the instance that the Pac-12 or Big Ten champion received a bid to the BCS National Championship, the Rose Bowl was filled by either the second place team of the conference with the team that opted out, or if a non-AQ school was ranked higher in the BCS standings they received the bid over the second place team. This occurred in 2010 when Oregon played in the BCS Championship Game, and TCU (Mountain West Conference) filled Oregon's place in the Rose Bowl, not the Pac-12 second place, Stanford.

2013 Non-BCS bowl games
The 30 bowls that are not part of the BCS have contractual ties to specific conferences. For the 2011-12 bowl season, all 30 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 not have a losing record in the FBS. If a school plays 12 games, they must have at least six wins to qualify. If a school plays 13 games, they must then have at least seven wins to qualify. A rule change for 2010 allows bowls to tender a bid to any team with a 6-6 record before teams with more than six wins. Previously, a bowl with an at-large bid to fill was required to select the remaining team with the best record over a 6-6 team that would have been more financially attractive in terms of bringing more fans to the respective bowl.

Records vs. selection order
The contracts specify that the respective bowl committees receive a certain choice of teams. It should be noted that the selection order lists show below (#1, #2, #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 chose 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 Capital One Bowl is contractually obligated to select the winningest Big Ten and SEC teams that do not make a BCS 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 three contracted bowls.

2013 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 provides an "at-large" selection to the BCS, the remaining bowls still select in the same order. Should a conference like the Pac-12 receive an "at-large" bid from the BCS, their remaining bowl tie-ins would be affected. The Alamo Bowl would then have the third (and not second) selection from the Pac-12, and all remaining bowls would be shifted 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
2014:
 * #1 Birmingham Bowl versus SEC
 * #2 The St. Petersburg Bowl versus ACC
 * #3 The Miami Beach Bowl versus BYU
 * #4 The Military Bowl versus ACC
 * #5 The Bahamas Bowl versus Mid American

Atlantic Coast Conference
2013:


 * #1 Bowl Championship Series. Automatic berth to a BCS bowl game, preferentially the Discover Orange Bowl.
 * #2 The Chick-fil-A Bowl versus SEC #5.
 * #3 The Russell Athletic Bowl versus AAC #2.
 * #4 The Hyundai Sun Bowl versus Pac-12 #4. (Contractually obligated to select ACC Championship Game runner-up, if still available.)
 * #5 The Belk Bowl versus AAC #3.
 * #6 The Music City Bowl versus SEC #7.
 * #7 The AdvoCare V100 Bowl versus SEC #10.
 * #8 The Military Bowl versus Conference USA #6.
 * #9 The Fight Hunger Bowl versus Pac-12 #6 (BYU has an agreement in place to be first selection for Fight Hunger bowl; ACC fills slot only if BYU is not bowl eligible).

Big 12 Conference
2013:
 * #1 Bowl Championship Series. Automatic berth in a BCS Bowl game, preferentially the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.
 * #2 The Cotton Bowl Classic versus SEC #3.
 * #3 The Alamo Bowl versus Pac-12 #2.
 * #4 The Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl versus Big Ten #4.
 * #5 The Holiday Bowl versus Pac-12 #3.
 * #6 The Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas versus Big Ten #6.
 * #7 The New Era Pinstripe Bowl versus AAC #4.

Big Ten Conference
2014:
 * #1 Bowl Championship Series. Automatic berth to a BCS bowl game, preferentially the Rose Bowl versus Pac-12 #1.
 * #2 The Capital One Bowl versus SEC #2.
 * #3 The Outback Bowl versus SEC #4.
 * #4 The Holiday Bowl versus Pac-12 #3.
 * #5 The TaxSlayer Bowl versus SEC #4 or Music City Bowl versus SEC #3.
 * #6 The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl versus Pac-12 #6.
 * #7 The Pinstripe Bowl versus ACC.
 * #8 The Quick Lane Bowl versus ACC.
 * #9 The Heart of Dallas Bowl versus C-USA #4.

Conference USA
2013:
 * #1 The Liberty Bowl versus SEC #8.
 * #2 The Hawai'i Bowl versus Mountain West #5.
 * #3 The Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl versus AAC #6.
 * #4 The Heart of Dallas Bowl versus Big Ten #7.
 * #5 The Military Bowl versus ACC #8.
 * #6 The New Orleans Bowl versus Sun Belt #1.

Mid-American Conference
2014:
 * #1 The GoDaddy Bowl versus Sun Belt
 * #2 The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl versus Mountain West
 * #3 The Camellia Bowl versus Sun Belt
 * #4 The Boca Raton Bowl versus Conference USA
 * #5 The Bahamas Bowl versus Conference USA

Mountain West Conference
2014:
 * #1 The Las Vegas Bowl versus Pac-12
 * #2 The Poinsettia Bowl versus Navy.
 * #3 The Armed Forces Bowl versus Conference USA
 * #4 The Hawaii Bowl versus Conference USA
 * #5 The New Mexico Bowl versus Pac -12
 * #6 The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl versus MAC

Pacific-12 Conference
2014: Winner goes to the College Football Championship Game.
 * #1 Bowl Championship Series semi finals. Automatic berth to a BCS bowl game, preferentially the Rose Bowl versus Big Ten #1.
 * #2 The Alamo Bowl versus Big 12 #2.
 * #3 The Holiday Bowl versus Big Ten #4.
 * #4 The San Francisco Bowl versus Big Ten #6.
 * #5 The Sun Bowl versus ACC #4.
 * #6 The Las Vegas Bowl versus Mountain West #1.
 * #7 The Cactus Bowl (Tempe) versus Big 12 #6.

Southeastern Conference
2014: College Football Playoff, the Allstate Sugar Bowl or the Discover Orange Bowl then:
 * #1 The Capital One Bowl versus Big Ten or ACC.
 * #2 The Outback Bowl versus Big Ten.
 * #3 The Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl versus ACC or Big 10.
 * #4 The TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl versus ACC or Big 10.
 * #5 The AutoZone Liberty Bowl versus Big 12.
 * #6 The Texas Bowl versus Big 12.
 * #7 The Belk Bowl versus ACC.
 * #8 The Birmingham Bowl versus TBA.
 * #9 The Duck Commander Independence Bowl versus ACC.

Sun Belt Conference
2014:
 * #1 The New Orleans Bowl versus Conference USA
 * #2 The GoDaddy Bowl versus MAC
 * #3 The Camellia Bowl versus MAC

Division I FBS Independents
Of the independent Football Bowl Subdivision teams, there are contractual agreements to play in certain bowl games should they become bowl eligible. All of these teams remain eligible for selection as a replacement team when the conferences do not have enough eligible teams to meet their obligations.

For 2013, the contractual obligations:
 * Army -
 * BYU -
 * Navy - Poinsettia Bowl
 * '''Notre Dame