How The NCAA's Modified Bowl Selection Process Could Affect Syracuse

During the NCAA Council's meeting in Indianapolis on Wednesday, some changes were made to the process of selecting eligible teams for bowl games for the 2016-2017 season. Now, all bowl-eligible teams with 6-6 records must be placed in a bowl game before any teams with 5-7 records are even considered.

After all of the 6-6 teams are selected for a bowl game, the 5-7 teams will be ranked in descending order by their multiyear Academic Progress Rate (APR) in the Football Bowl Subdivision for the most recent reporting year. In this order, teams will get to select the bowl that they participate in.

If two teams are tied in multi-year APR, then the team with the higher APR for the most recent single year will be ranked higher.

This change to the bowl selection process will have an effect on many teams, and could end up hurting Syracuse at least in the short term.

Many fans are hoping to see the Orange in a bowl game at the end of next season, but based on their schedule, 5-7 looks much more likely than 6-6. Syracuse will have to keep its APR up in order to have a shot at a bowl game, but even then it's not too promising.

While 6-6 is a lot to ask of Dino Babers and his team this year, especially coming off a 4-8 season, it would make things a lot easier come bowl season and we wouldn't have to fret over APR standings.