Bowl Watch: There are now more bowl eligible teams (79) than needed

Published Nov. 26, 2017 1:43 a.m. ET

There are more bowl eligible teams than needed this year.

Utah became the 79th bowl eligible team when it beat Colorado on Saturday night. Louisiana Tech, Temple, Duke, Middle Tennessee and Purdue also became bowl eligible earlier in the day.

There are spots for 78 FBS teams in bowls this season. In the past couple seasons, five-win teams have had to play in bowls because there weren't enough .500 teams. That's not necessary now.

In fact, Florida State (5-6), New Mexico State (5-6) and Louisiana-Lafayette (5-6) can also become bowl eligible with victories next week, so there could be a handful of eligible teams that don't get to play on.