2015 Look-Ahead: Heading Back Home (P5 Teams)

Two weeks ago, I took a look back at how in each of the last five years, a handful of teams from the five power conferences became bowl-eligible after failing to do so the previous year. This time around, I'm going to look at things from the other approach: teams missing out on bowl eligibilty despite making it to that mark the previous year.

There's really no stretch of logic here, as there are always some teams that rise up and others that stumble unexpectedly. Of course, I focus on the power conferences here, since those teams will generally go to a bowl if they are eligible to do so. And also, I'm not counting sanctioned teams (like USC, Miami, or Penn State) in my tabulations.

So, as I did before, here are the past five years' worth of teams that managed to fall from the winning (or at least 6-6) side to the 5-7 or worse side:

2010 (7 teams)

Minnesota, Texas, Iowa State, Oregon State, Cal, UCLA, Ole Miss

2011 (6 teams)
BC, Maryland, Texas Tech, Arizona, Kentucky, Tennessee

2012 (9 teams)
Wake, UVA, Iowa, Illinois, Cal, Utah, Missouri, Arkansas, Auburn

2013 (7 teams)
NC State, Northwestern, Purdue, TCU, West Virginia, Iowa State, Florida

2014 (5 teams)

Syracuse, Michigan, Texas Tech, Oregon State, Vandy


As a quick reference, 2010-2014 saw 8, 9, 6, 6, and 7 teams, respectively, go from bowl-ineligible to bowl eligible. As a result, it would seem that the range is roughly the same. Again, nothing earth-shattering.


So, in making predictions for the 2015 season, it would be unwise to simply take last year's bowl eligible teams and predict they'll all just be bowl eligible again. A handful of those teams will see their bowl appearance streaks (some longer than others, of course) come to an end.

Just as I did in the other thread, I'll go ahead and make a prediction - this time, 6 teams that went to a bowl in 2014 that will stay home after the 2015 season.

• Miami (a few key losses in a row leads the Hurricanes on another tailspin)
• Illinois (I think Minnesota and Northwestern give the Illini just a little too much trouble)
• West Virginia (I don't think the Mountaineers sneak up on anyone after going toe-to-toe with Baylor and TCU last year)
• Washington (after losing a bit of talent to the NFL, the Huskies take a step back, but could be building something nice for 2016 and beyond)
• Florida (I think the new coaching staff and players perform pretty well, but struggle to put up the wins)
• Texas A&M (I'm not sold that all 7 teams from any division will go bowling 2 years in a row...I pick the team that's most one-dimensional as the one that will miss the 6-6 mark).

Less than 2 months until kickoff...and so much to look forward to!  Conference previews, Group of Five look-aheads...and looking at what the New Year's Six and CFP