NCAA to waive bowl eligibility requirements in 2020, which is good news for Arizona

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If the Arizona Wildcats don’t make a bowl game following the just-revived 2020 season it will mark three years in a row, which hasn’t happened for the program since the mid-2000s.

And while the odds are still against Arizona going bowling, at least that annoying requirement to have won at least as many games as you’ve lost won’t get in the way.

The NCAA Division I Football Oversight Committee recommended Thursday to waive the requirements for bowl eligibility for 2020 games. Normally teams would be required to have won six games and finished with a .500 record or better.

Bowl teams with the worst final records include:

1963 SMU 4-7 (Sun)
2016 North Texas 5-8 (Heart of Dallas)
1945 South Carolina 2-4-3 (Gator)

— Matt Brown (@MattBrownCFB) September 24, 2020

The committee also recommended allowing the 2020-21 bowl season to begin as early as Dec. 1, despite most teams’ regular seasons not being over by then, and extending through Jan. 11. That would mean the College Football Playoff would not get pushed back, as some had hoped.

The NCAA Division I Council is set to vote on these recommendations at its next meeting Oct. 13-14.

Arizona, which is set to play a 7-game schedule starting Nov. 6, last played a bowl game in 2017 when it lost to Purdue in the Foster Farms Bowl. The Wildcats’ last postseason win came against New Mexico in the 2015 New Mexico Bowl.

Arizona has only finished above .500 in the Pac-12 once since the start of the 2015 season.

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