2017–18 NCAA football bowl games

College Football Playoff and Championship Game

The College Football Playoff system was used to determine a national champion of Division I FBS college football. A 13-member committee of experts ranked the top 25 teams in the nation after each of the last seven weeks of the 2017 season. The top four teams in the final ranking played a single-elimination semifinal round, with the winners advancing to the National Championship game.

The semifinal games were the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl. Both were played on New Year's Day, as part of a yearly rotation of three pairs of six bowls, commonly referred to as the CFP New Year's Six bowl games. Their winners advanced to the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia on January 8, 2018.

Non-CFP bowl games

On April 11, 2016, the NCAA announced a freeze on new bowl games until after the 2019 season. While bowl games had been the purview of only the very best teams for nearly a century, the NCAA had to lower its postseason eligibility criteria repeatedly (2006, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013), eventually allowing teams with losing seasons (5–7) to participate in bowls due to there being not enough bowl-eligible teams, while also having to allow teams from the same conference to meet in the 2015 Arizona Bowl due to the lack of eligible teams to meet its other tie-ins.^[6][7][8] For the 2017–18 bowl season, 62% of the 130 teams playing in Division I FBS were deemed eligible to participate in a bowl game, with 60% actually receiving invites to fill the 78 available slots.

For the 2017–18 bowl season, changes from the prior season's bowl games are the Frisco Bowl replacing the Miami Beach Bowl, and discontinuation of the Poinsettia Bowl. What was the Russell Athletic Bowl is now the Camping World Bowl, due to a sponsorship change and the St. Petersburg Bowl has been renamed as the Gasparilla Bowl, after mythical St. Petersburg area pirate José Gaspar.

All-star games

CFP top 25 teams

On December 3, 2017, the College Football Playoff selection committee announced their final team rankings for the year.^[9]

In the fourth year of the College Football Playoff era, this was the first time that two of the four semifinalists (Georgia and Alabama) were from the same conference.

Bowl-eligible teams

• American (7): Houston, Memphis, Navy, SMU, South Florida, Temple, UCF
• ACC (10): Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Louisville, Miami, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
• Big Ten (8): Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin
• Big 12 (8): Iowa State, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas, Texas Tech, West Virginia
• C-USA (10): FIU, Florida Atlantic, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, North Texas, Southern Miss, UAB, UTSA, Western Kentucky
• Independent (2): Army, Notre Dame
• MAC (7): Akron, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Northern Illinois, Ohio, Toledo, Western Michigan
• Mountain West (6): Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Utah State, Wyoming
• Pac-12 (9): Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington, Washington State
• SEC (9): Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas A&M
• Sun Belt (5): Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Georgia State, New Mexico State, Troy

Number of teams going to bowl games: 78

Number of bowl-eligible teams: 81

In mid-December multiple media sources reported that Florida State might not have met its bowl eligibility requirements. The team had a record of 6–6, with one of the wins – their 77–6 victory over Delaware State – against an FCS team. For such a game to count towards bowl eligibility, the FCS opponent must have used at least 90 percent of its allotted scholarships, and it was not clear that Delaware State had done so.^[10] But a few days later the Florida State administration issued a statement saying that Delaware State did in fact meet that threshold, once non-athletic scholarship funds were factored in.^[11]

Bowl-eligible teams that did not receive a berth

As there are more bowl-eligible teams than bowl berths, three bowl-eligible teams did not receive a bowl berth:

• Buffalo (6–6)
• UTSA (6–5)
• Western Michigan (6–6)

Bowl-ineligible teams

• American (5): Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina, Tulane, Tulsa
• ACC (4): Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Syracuse
• Big Ten (6): Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rutgers
• Big 12 (2): Baylor, Kansas
• C-USA (4): Charlotte, Old Dominion, Rice, UTEP
• Independent (2): BYU, Massachusetts
• MAC (5): Ball State, Bowling Green, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Miami (OH)
• Mountain West (6): Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, San Jose State, UNLV
• Pac-12 (3): California, Colorado, Oregon State
• SEC (5): Arkansas, Florida, Ole Miss^{[lower-alpha 1]}, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
• Sun Belt (7): Coastal Carolina^{[lower-alpha 2]}, Georgia Southern, Idaho, Louisiana–Lafayette, Louisiana–Monroe, South Alabama, Texas State

Notes

Number of bowl-ineligible teams: 49