THE BOWL ELIGIBLE BLOG
From the Blog
College football stories built from the same verified datasets the games run on.
1990s College Football Trivia: A Nostalgic Test
A 1990s college football trivia test from the Bowl Eligible bank: all ten Heisman winners of the decade, the champions, draft-night history, and what the final AP polls say about the era.
2026 College Football Hot Seat & Buyout Tracker
Our editorial hot-seat tracker pairs the coaches under the most contract pressure with the sourced buyout figures that decide whether a school can actually move.
2026-27 College Football Bowl Tie-Ins by Conference
All 41 bowls for 2026-27 with their conference tie-ins, from the Dec. 15 openers to the CFP semifinals, plus the Pac-12 legacy rule that makes four of them confusing.
50 SEC Football Trivia Questions (With Answers)
Fifty SEC trivia questions pulled straight from the Bowl Eligible question bank: all 16 nicknames, the real names of the famous stadiums, Heisman winners, draft nights, and the 2026 head coaches.
Big Ten Football Trivia: The 18-Team Era
Fifty Big Ten trivia questions from the Bowl Eligible question bank, covering all 18 schools of the expanded league: nicknames, stadiums, Heisman winners, draft steals, and the 2026 head coaches.
Bowl Eligible: What It Means, How Many Wins, and the 5–7 Backdoor
Bowl eligible means six wins — usually. How eligibility works, why one FCS win counts, and how 5-7 teams back into bowls through the APR line.
College Football's Rivalry Trophies, Ranked by Weirdness
A live turtle, a 98-pound bronze pig, and a trophy born in a Twitter argument: college football's rivalry trophies, ranked by weirdness.
Dead Money: Fired College Coaches Still Getting Paid
Our dataset records $538.4 million in buyouts across 25 fired coaches, and the payment schedules show some schools still writing checks years later.
Duty to Mitigate: Offset Language in Coaching Buyouts, Explained
A buyout headline is the gross number. Offset language, mitigation duties, and settlements decide what a school may actually pay. Examples from verified tenure data.
Every Conference Realignment Move Since 2010, Mapped
98 conference changes since 2010, the collapse of the Pac-12, and the most-traveled team in America: every realignment move, mapped from the data.
Every Team That Finished No. 1 in the Final AP Poll Since 1989
Only 17 schools have finished No. 1 in the final AP Top 25 since 1989. Alabama did it seven times. Indiana, with three appearances total, is the newest member.
FBS Stadiums by Capacity: The Complete 2026 List
All 134 FBS stadiums with verified capacity in our database, ranked from Michigan Stadium's 107,601 down to Kennesaw State's 10,200, with the SEC averaging 80,854 a building.
FBS Stadiums Ranked by Elevation: Wyoming Stands Alone Above 7,000 Feet
All 138 FBS stadiums ranked by elevation, from Wyoming's 7,234 feet to Tulane's 10. The top 11 are all in the Mountain time zone.
From Nowhere to the Top 10: Final Poll Crashers Since 1989
101 times since 1990, a team finished in the final AP Top 10 after missing the previous season's final Top 25 completely. Three went all the way to No. 1. Every crasher, by season.
How Do College Football Coach Buyouts Actually Work?
Guaranteed money, offset clauses, duty to mitigate, lump sums versus installments: how a coach buyout is built, and why the same firing can cost $49 million or $9 million.
Longest Active Bowl Streaks in College Football, and Why Every List Disagrees
Georgia's 29-year bowl streak is real. After that, the number depends on what counts as a bowl. Our table, our definitions, and the fights between them.
Longest Tenured Active College Football Coaches
Kirk Ferentz stands alone from the 1999 hiring class. Ranking the longest current FBS coaching tenures by start year, with their sourced buyouts.
Retro College Football Games to Play Online (Free)
Bowl Eligible's retro shelf: identify a season from clues, rebuild a final AP Top 25, order 290 historic events, and solve a broken box score. Four daily history games.
Sickos Committee Classics: The Lowest-Scoring Games in Our Vault
Two 3-0 finals, a 3-2 baseball score, and a 6-4 game built on safeties: the lowest-scoring games among the 64 in our Box Score Autopsy vault.
Teams Chasing a Bowl Breakthrough in 2026
Three FBS programs have never played in a bowl in our 2005-2025 records, and a dozen more are dragging droughts of five years or longer into 2026.
The 25 Highest College Football Coach Buyouts (2026)
Kirby Smart tops Curt Cignetti and a crowded $60 million club in our sourced ranking of the 25 highest school-owes coach buyouts in the 2026 file.
The Biggest Coaching Buyouts in College Football History
From Jimbo Fisher's $76.8 million to Auburn's habit of paying coaches to leave, the biggest coaching buyouts in college football history, ranked.
The Cheapest Power Conference Coach Buyouts in 2026
Hawaii's Timmy Chang owns the cheapest sourced buyout in the file at $57,576, while the lowest Power conference figure is still $7.6 million.
The Closest FBS Stadiums to Each Other
Two FBS stadiums sit 2.6 miles apart in the same city. We measured every nearest-neighbor distance in our 136-stadium database, from Atlanta's pair to Hawaii's 2,399-mile isolation.
The Craziest Box Scores in College Football History
A 74-72 final in seven overtimes. A 6-4 game with no offensive touchdown. The craziest box scores in college football history, from a 64-game set.
The FBS Teams That Have Never Been Ranked in the AP Poll
Thirty-two of today's 138 FBS programs have never finished a season in the final AP Top 25 since 1989. Here is the full list, counted from 37 years of final polls.
The Hardest College Football Trivia Questions We Could Build
Twenty-five questions from the deepest tier of the Bowl Eligible trivia bank, the tier Sudden Death saves for last: forgotten stadiums, exact capacities, 1970s Heisman winners, and tenth-round draft picks.
The Last Purists: FBS Stadiums Without Corporate Naming Rights
Only 29 of 138 FBS stadiums carry a traditional name with no corporate sponsor. Michigan Stadium, Tiger Stadium, the Coliseum, and the rest of the holdouts.
The Longest Conference Road Trips in College Football for 2026
Northern Illinois to Hawaii is a 4,188-mile conference trip. We computed the longest stadium-to-stadium distance inside every 2026 conference from the membership and stadium data.
The Longest Uninterrupted Rivalries in College Football
Our 46-rivalry file does not list every season, so it cannot certify a literal no-gap streak. It can rank the longest documented annual runs, led by 135 Minnesota-Wisconsin meetings.
The Most Played Rivalries in College Football
Among the 46 rivalries in our Bragging Rights dataset, Minnesota and Wisconsin have met 135 times, more than any other pair. The most played rivalries, ranked by meetings.
The Rise and Fall of Big East Football
Big East football lasted 22 seasons in Bowl Eligible's membership file. The timeline: 8 original members, 12 total schools, two ACC raids, and a 2013 split.
The Weirdest Bowl Game Sponsors in College Football History
PapaJohns.com, Beef 'O' Brady's, MPC Computers, and a one-year toastery: the strangest bowl sponsors in our 752-game dataset, 2005 to 2025.
The Youngest Head Coaches in College Football (2026)
Florida Atlantic's Zach Kittley is the only FBS head coach in the file born in 1991. See the youngest coaches, their birth years, schools, alma maters, and tenure starts.
Where Did Every 2026 FBS Head Coach Go to College?
We pulled the alma mater for all 138 FBS head coaches in 2026. Ohio State produced seven of them. A Division III school produced three. Seventeen coach at home.
Which Cities Have Multiple FBS Teams?
Only two cities have two FBS stadiums inside the same city limits, but five metro areas have three. Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, the Bay Area, and South Florida, measured from the stadium data.
Who's Left? The Remaining FBS Independent Teams in 2026
Only 2 of the 138 FBS schools in Bowl Eligible's membership file are independents in 2026: Notre Dame and UConn. Here is how the group shrank.