A couple new threads this morning were talking about our likelihood of getting a bowl game with 5 wins. I had actually been thinking about that earlier this week and found a list and did a little research to narrow it down, so I figured I would share it.

I got the list from this SB Nation article, but there is a link to the raw data from the NCAA included. https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2017/5/10/15613274/ncaa-apr-scores-2017-bowl-eligibility

In total, we are tied for 22nd in the country after removing the FCS teams (we're 44th including the FCS teams; pretty good!). It's a 4 way tie between us, Auburn, Clemson, and Alabama, which is nice because of course all of them have already gotten 6 wins so we don't have to worry about being tied with somebody else at 5 wins. But, obviously, most of those 22 teams won't get 5 wins.

After taking out the teams that already have 6 wins and have an APR equal to or greater than us, we are 15th.

Last year 75 teams got to 6 wins. Say that number holds for this year, there will be 3 5-win teams invited to a bowl game. Lets try to cut out some of these that likely won't make it.

Northwestern, Navy, and Louisville all have 5 wins already and pretty good odds of getting to 6.

Rice already has 7 losses and are double digit underdogs to UAB this week, and get Southern Miss next week. They're gonna be lucky to win more than 1 more game.

Unfortunately after that we are still only 11th. I went to SB Nation's Football Study Hall to get probabilities for the other teams to get exactly exactly 5 wins.

I don't remember a lot of statistics, but with 10 teams above us and an average rate of one of them getting 5 wins is 35.7%, I believe that puts us at a 30.8% chance to be the 2 or less of those teams ahead of us having 5 wins. If we can get in as the 4th ranked 5 win team, we have a 52.2% chance, and if we can get in as the 5th ranked 5 win team (which was how many teams got in last year, although there is 1 fewer bowl game this year), we have a 71.2% chance. I figured this out by just putting those numbers in a Poisson probability calculator, but if that's totally not how you figure that out, somebody correct me.

Of course, every week these odds get more clear, and I'm not sure how accurate SB Nation's win probability odds are. There is also the chance that we get a waiver for finishing 5-6 instead of 5-7 and get in that way; from what I've heard that's possible but not actually a rule on the books, so it's hard to say what the odds of that are.

Most important thing is that we need to win our games and make all of this not matter because we are 7-4!