It's crunch time in college football. As the calendar churns on towards November, plenty of teams are feeling various degrees of pressure.
Some are in the thick of the 12-team College Football Playoff race with plenty of games over the last month that will swing their seasons either way. Then there are the teams that are just hoping to make a bowl game.
UTEP and Kent State are the only two teams that have been eliminated from the postseason hunt so far, but that field will grow over the next couple of weeks. There are plenty of programs that remain in that liminal space between six wins and seven losses.
Some have no business being there. For all of the success stories thus far in 2024 -- and there have been plenty -- there are a lot of major schools that have way underperformed. Even some of the sport's so-called "blue bloods" are in a precarious position when it comes to making a bowl, let alone hoping for anything beyond that.
Struggles and meltdowns go hand-in-hand in college football. So it felt appropriate to come up with a scale to assess just how bleak the path to bowl eligibility is for some of college football's major programs. We'll call it BOWLCON, ripping from the DEFCON system. And like the DEFCON levels, a "5" indicates relative stability while a "1" means that the situation is critical, with the rest of the levels scaling proportionately.
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Oklahoma State
Record: 3-4
Remaining games: at Baylor, Arizona State, at TCU, Texas Tech, at Colorado
Level of concern: BOWLCON 2
Oklahoma State went from No. 3 in the preseason Big 12 media poll -- with 14 first-place votes -- to out of the conference race before the calendar turns over to November. It's been quite the plummet for the Cowboys. Oklahoma State hasn't taken any steps on defense. The other side of the ball has been rough as well as the Pokes rotate quarterbacks trying to stir a dormant offense amid four-game losing streak. The remaining schedule looks like it should lend itself to three more wins. Baylor and TCU are the best bets, but the rest are swing games at best. Whether Oklahoma State can finish on a high note remains to be seen. It's certainly behind the 8-ball at this point.
Kentucky
Record: 3-4
Remaining games: Auburn, at No. 7 Tennessee, Murray State, at No. 5 Texas, Louisville
Level of concern: BOWLCON 2
Mark Stoops has set a bowl-game floor over the last decade of his Kentucky tenure, which makes the Wildcats' latest struggles all the more surprising. They hinged their hopes on another transfer quarterback in Brock Vandagriff, and it certainly hasn't worked out. Kentucky currently ranks last in the SEC in passing with 167.9 yards per game -- triple option school Navy isn't far behind with 161 yards passing per contest, if you're wanting context for how truly awful that is -- and scoring with a scant 20.4 points per game. The 'Cats are going to have to pull off at least one upset to get to six wins. Helping their case is the fact that Murray State is the first FCS opponent they'll play this year, so that win would count towards their bowl eligibility.
North Carolina
Record: 3-4
Remaining games: at Virginia, at Florida State, Wake Forest, at Boston College, NC State
Level of concern: BOWLCON 3
How bad have things been going for North Carolina? Well, coach Mack Brown offered to step down in an impassioned locker room meeting after an especially egregious 70-50 loss to James Madison. He obviously didn't, but the moment wasn't enough to turn things around. In fact, it sparked a four-game losing streak for the Tar Heels, who are still searching for their first breakthrough in ACC play. They'll need to start stacking wins to have a shot at bowl season. The good news is the remaining schedule, on paper at least, is a cakewalk. Florida State, Wake Forest, Boston College and NC State have a combined 4-12 record in ACC play. UNC could definitely scrape three wins out of that.
Auburn
Record: 2-5
Remaining games: at Kentucky, No. 25 Vanderbilt, ULM, No. 14 Texas A&M, at No. 15 Alabama
Level of concern: BOWLCON 1
There's a Freeze Warning in effect on The Plains: Auburn's postseason hopes are currently on ice. The Tigers aren't just losing games, though; they're melting down. They've blown a double-digit fourth quarter lead twice in their last three games. That level of un-clutch certainly isn't a great sign for a team that has to win 80% of its remaining contests to secure bowl eligibility. Especially when three of those games come against ranked conference opponents.
Oklahoma
Record: 4-3
Remaining games: at No. 18 Ole Miss, Maine, at No. 21 Missouri, No. 15 Alabama, at No. 8 LSU
Level of concern: BOWLCON 2
No one necessarily expected Oklahoma to hit the ground running when it arrived in the SEC, but it was also hard to anticipate that the Sooners would be mentioned in the same breath as the Mississippi States of the conference (no offense to Mississippi State, at least the Bulldogs know how to actually score the football). Oklahoma's offense has been such a disaster that the Sooners let offensive coordinator Seth Littrell go just seven games into his tenure as a full-time assistant. Brent Venables certainly hit the nail on the head when he called the offense an "abomination" -- Oklahoma scored a combined 12 points in its last two losses to Texas and South Carolina. Traditionally, being two wins away from a bowl is a decent spot to be in one week out from November. But then you look at Oklahoma's schedule, which features one game that it should win and four that -- if recent results are any indication -- it would be lucky to compete in. That starts this week, when the Sooners are 20-point underdogs to Ole Miss, according to FanDuel.
Florida State
Record: 1-6
Remaining games: at No. 6 Miami, North Carolina, at No. 12 Notre Dame, Charleston Southern, Florida
Level of concern: BOWLCON 1
Florida State's still technically in the fight, but its bowl hopes have been on life support for a while now. That season-opening loss to Georgia Tech preceded a precipitous fall from the ACC's mountaintop to the depths of the cellar. We could play pretend and say the Seminoles might get hot and win their last five games, but they'll probably an underdog on sports betting apps against every team left besides Charleston Southern.
USC
Record: 3-4
Remaining games: Rutgers, at Washington, Nebraska, at UCLA, No. 12 Notre Dame
Level of concern: BOWLCON 4
Should USC get to at least six win with its remaining schedule? Absolutely. In a normal year, the Trojans would be runaway betting favorites in four out of their last five games. This isn't a normal year, and this is the same USC that lost to Minnesota and handed Maryland its first win in Big Ten play. A litany of injuries haven't helped, but it turns out USC's hot start to the year -- especially on the defensive side of the ball -- was fugazi. The Trojans haven't adjusted well to the Big Ten's physicality and they've noticeably run out of gas, especially late in games. Now they're up against the ropes.
Michigan
Record: 4-3
Remaining games: Michigan State, No. 1 Oregon, at No. 13 Indiana, Northwestern, No. 4 Ohio State
Level of concern: BOWLCON 3
Given everything they lost in the offseason, realistic preseason measurements indicated that this would be a rebuilding year for the Wolverines. They they still landed in the top 10 of the first AP poll and hung around for a while amid a decent start. Despite recent struggles Michigan is in decent shape to make a bowl. Saturday's showdown against rival Michigan State looks like a real swing game in that outlook, though. The Wolverines should beat Northwestern handily, but that Oregon-Indiana-Ohio State triplet is brutal.