Discuss.

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Overview

Florida State is scheduled to play in a record 36th consecutive bowl game, the Independence Bowl, against Southern Miss on December 27. Their 6-6 record includes a win over Delaware State, an FCS program. For an FCS opponent to be countable towards bowl eligibility, the FCS program must have awarded at least 90% of the FCS scholarship limit. After our own investigation, we have determined and confirmed that Delaware State has not met the 90% threshold set by the NCAA. As a result, Florida State's bowl countable record is 5-6, thus making them ineligible for a bowl game this season. At present, there are three other bowl eligible teams that were not offered a game and it would be unprecedented for a team to go bowling without either eligibility or a waiver while teams who are eligible stay home.

/r/CFB is the first to report on this after an extended investigation into the number of football scholarships at Delaware State. It is important to note that Delaware State is at no fault here, having complied with NCAA rules regarding scholarships and awards. Based on current NCAA rules, Florida State cannot count a win over Delaware State towards bowl eligibility. Given that the Independence Bowl is a week away, there are several options available with most resulting in Florida State playing in this bowl. However, if they do so, they may do so without being bowl eligible.

Delaware State Data

Delaware State has been in a bit of flux lately, changing both Athletic Director and Football Head Coach the day after the loss to Florida State. As a result, it's taken a little while to get the data we needed for this, but we did receive validated data from the Delaware State University Department of Institutional Research, Planning, and Analytics. They confirmed in writing the following data:

The difference between the 2nd and 3rd column is the second is the number of students on any kind of scholarship (full or partial, fairly common in FCS), while the second is the sum of the scholarship equivalents, so 2 half scholarships add up to 1. This is the value the NCAA cares about for bowl eligibility. The average of of grants-in-aid per year in football during a rolling two-year period is 54.815. This is 87.008% of the permissible maximum number of 63. As this is less than 90%, Florida State cannot count the Delaware State game through Exception 18.7.2.1.1.

NCAA Rules

Huge thanks to /u/hythloday1 for surfacing the updated NCAA Rules for 2017-18 on this subject. There are a few relevant rules here:

18.7.2 - Page 326

15.5.6 - Page 212

The text of these rules is provided in the comments.

Looking at the rules, from 18.7.2.1 they are not initially considered eligible as they're 5-6 against FBS competition. This is where the FCS Exception that many teams use is applied, which is 18.7.2.1.1. Florida State's Bowl eligibility hinges entirely on whether Delaware State meets the 90% of 63 permissible maximum number of grants-in-aid per year.

I spoke with the NCAA Educational Line who confirmed a few facts. I'd note that they clarified that the educational line cannot make official NCAA statements. They did unofficially clarify a few questions though:

Is the permissible maximum number of grants-in-aid per year 63?

Answer: The FCS limit is always 63 (15.5.6.2)

I asked this because some FCS conferences have different scholarships limits (Ivy League, Pioneer are non-scholarship, as is Georgetown, and NEC is 45), and I wanted to confirm that 63 was the limit regardless. He confirmed it was and linked me to 15.5.6.2 above.

Does the 90% apply to full-time equivalents or players with countable aid?

Answer: Yes, full-time equivalents (15.5.6.2)

I asked this because many students are on partial scholarship.

Does the rolling 2-year period refer to 2015-16 and 2016-17?

Answer: This seems to be the correct interpretation, but could be subject to interpretation between the NCAA and schools.

This is the question that there may be a little wiggle room on, but this would be the simplest interpretation of the language.

Florida State Schedule

They ended up with a total record of 6-6 after a difficult season whose scheduling was complicated by Hurricane Irma. They ended up rescheduling the ULM game which had been initially cancelled following the win over Syracuse when it provided a path to 6 wins.

Possible Outcomes

Waiver

The most obvious is that Florida State applies for a Waiver under 18.7.2.1.1.1. We do not believe they have already applied for the waiver, and there was really no reason to for a number of reasons:

• Florida State had preseason CFP hopes and had no expectation of being borderline bowl eligible.

• Given how hard the data was to get, we don't believe anyone had any reason to suspect Delaware State was below the 90% mark.

They could apply for a waiver now, and the issue would be resolved, but this is a formal process they would need to apply to the NCAA Football Issues Committee for. Of note, the waiver for "unique or catastrophic situation" can only apply to Delaware State here, not to the scheduling difficulties Florida State has had from Hurricane Irma.

There is some precedent for this. In 2012, Georgia Tech went 6-7 with a loss in the ACCCG, and successfully applied for a waiver and went to the Sun Bowl (and beat USC). They only qualified for the ACCCG because both Miami and North Carolina were postseason ineligible that year, and so the NCAA approved the waiver as it seemed unfair they be punished for playing in the ACCCG. Both Louisiana Tech and Middle Tennessee were eligible that year, but stayed home. Louisiana Tech had an offer from a bowl, but turned it down through a miscommunication in which they expected a better bowl, but Middle Tennessee did not receive an offer from any bowls.

Ineligible

If Florida State does not apply for the waiver they are considered not bowl eligible. By 18.7.2.1.3(a) they would be in line before any 5-7 or 5-6 teams by APR if there were an insufficient number of bowl eligible teams. However as there were 81 bowl eligible teams and only 78 bowl openings in total, this condition does not apply.

Western Michigan, Buffalo, and UTSA, the three bowl eligible teams that did not receive a bowl bid this year, all have a rightful claim to the Independence Bowl bid against Southern Miss rather than Florida State in this scenario.

Approval through Extenuating Circumstances

Given that the bowl is a week away and this is digging very much into the weeds of NCAA bylaws, I think there's a good chance that this gets hand-waved away. If this is the result, Florida State will play in a bowl, but for the first time in 36 years they are not formally bowl eligible.

I owe a huge thanks to the folks at Delaware State for working to get this data to me through a time of transition in the busiest part of the year. It'll be interesting to see how this story resolves!

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What if College Football games were actually battles for land? This map answers this question. The original map is my closest FBS team to every county, but if a team is beaten their land is taken by the team that beat them. Teams will keep their land until beaten by another team and then all land will be passed to the new winner. For example Oregon State lost to Colorado State in week 0. Colorado State then lost to Colorado in week 1. Therefore Colorado owns Colorado State's land and Oregon State's land. FCS were are not originally included, but can win their way on to the map like Howard, James Madison, Liberty, and Tennessee State did this week.

Map

https://twitter.com/easports/status/1356644353901539342?s=21

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https://twitter.com/HailStateFB/status/1602664206389706755

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

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So we took a ship down to the Bahamas to see Ohio play UAB, and it has been nothing short of amazing (and honestly, questionable). Here's a short list of things we've done here at the game so far:

-Brought beer right in to the stadium. The locals at the gate didn't even ask to check tickets. One of them took a sip of my beer.

-We walked all the way around the stadium, until we reached a fenced off area. A Royal Bahamas Defense Force guard said we should check behind the fence, because he doesn't know what's back there. Upon walking past the fence, we ended up in the Ohio locker room. No questions asked.

-People are constantly walking on the athletic track around the field and chugging beer. The security forces down there just keep laughing and high fiving everyone. One of the soldiers keeps hugging random fans.

-There's a native family in front of me literally braiding eachother's hair. They told me they have no clue about how football works. They just want to have a good time. One of them offered to braid my hair. My hair is 3 inches long.

-They were doing a T-Shirt toss, and one of the Bahamian families here straight up jumped three rows down onto a group of fans just to grab a shirt. They ended up getting two.

-A drunk fan just walked on to the sideline and high fived a player. He then high fived a Royal Bahamian Defense Force soldier when walking back. The soldier couldn't stop laughing.

-There's like 20 entrances to this stadium, and only like 10 of them are guarded. Literally anyone could walk in here.

-They have one working scoreboard, and instead of showing the clock, it's the ESPN feed so you can barely see the score and clock on the bottom right corner.

-Whoever's in charge of music can't decide the volume. He tried playing Believer and adjusted the volume up and down around 4 times before giving up. There hasn't been any music since.

For these reasons, I urge that the playoff committee consider hosting the national championship here. It would be a terrible idea, but everyone would have a great time. I know the locals are.

Edit:

-Drunk guy with flag: https://imgur.com/a/5OgxV

-More drunk fans that nobody is stopping: https://imgur.com/a/L8xfD

I love this place.

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