Season 2008 Number of bowls 34 National Championship 2009 BCS Championship | Regular season August 28–December 6 All-star games 3 | |
 | ||
Bowl games December 20, 2008 –
January 31, 2009 | ||
The 2008–09 NCAA football bowl games, which concluded the 2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season, contained a record number of bowl games scheduled in college football history. A total of 37 bowl games, 34 team-competitive games and three all-star games, were played starting on December 20, 2008 with four contests and concludeing with the Texas vs. The Nation Game in El Paso, Texas, played on January 31, 2009 at Sun Bowl Stadium. For the first time in 62 years, however, the Hula Bowl was not a part of the post-season as it was cancelled indefinitely.
Contents
The NCAA divided Division I schools into two divisions starting in 1978: The Football Bowl Subdivision (known as Division I-A from 1978 through 2005) does not have a playoff system, and rewards schools which have football programs with outstanding records on the field during a season to play in bowl games as a reward. The Football Championship Subdivision (known through this same period as Division I-AA) plays in a sixteen-team, single elimination tournament for a recognized national championship, with the notable exceptions of the Ivy League, which abstains from football playoff participation, and the Southwestern Athletic Conference, who have their own playoff in this division.
A record 34 team-competitive games were played. To fill the 68 available bowl slots, a total of 9 teams with non-winning seasons participated in bowl games—all 9 had a .500 (6-6) season. With the NCAA adding six bowl games (requiring more 12 teams) since the 2006 season – the same year it also changed the rules to allow teams to play as many as 14 games during the season (12 games plus a game against Hawaii plus a conference championship final) – participation by teams with non-winning records, or even losing records (6-7 and 5-7), would become the norm for NCAA bowl games from the 2008 season forward.
Selection of the teams
NCAA bylaws say that a school with a record of 6–6 in regular season play and at least 5 wins over FBS teams are eligible only after conferences cannot fill out available positions for bowl games with teams having seven (or more) wins automatically eligible, excluding games played in Hawaii and conference championship games in the ACC, Big 12, Conference USA, MAC and the SEC.
After the final regular-season games on December 7, 2008, four conferences — the Pac-10, the SEC, the Big 12, and the Big Ten — did not have enough teams to fill their bowl game allotments. The Pac-10 had seven contracted bowl slots with only five teams eligible. The last two bowls in the Pac-10 pecking order—the Hawaiʻi Bowl (sixth) and Poinsettia Bowl (seventh)—had contingency contracts with other conferences, respectively Conference USA and the WAC, to select one of the secondary conference's teams should the Pac-10 fail to supply enough eligible teams to supply that bowl. However, because C-USA had only six bowl-eligible teams to fill its six primary bowl slots, the Pac-10/C-USA slot in the Hawaiʻi Bowl became an at-large spot, and was awarded to Notre Dame. The SEC and Big 12 failed to produce enough teams to fill their requirements even before both conferences had two teams selected to BCS games, while the Big Ten was unable to fill its requirements once a second team from that conference (Ohio State) was selected to a BCS game. The Atlantic Coast Conference sent an NCAA-record ten teams to bowl games this season. Since 72 teams were bowl-eligible, but only 68 bowl slots were available, four teams were left out of bowl games. Unlike in 2007, when an eight-win Troy team was left home for the postseason, no team with seven or more wins went without a bowl bid this year. All four uninvited teams — Arkansas State, Bowling Green, Louisiana-Lafayette, and San José State — had six wins.
Results
NOTE: Rankings from final BCS Standings of December 7, 2008.
Conference bowl representation
NOTE: BCS teams are listed in italics.