In a matter of hours Sunday, what had appeared to be a year no teams with losing records would be needed to fill out the bowl schedule suddenly changed when Notre Dame, Iowa State and Kansas State announced they would decline bids despite being eligible.<\/p>\n
There are 41 bowls this year, and 82 teams won the necessary six games to be eligible. But Iowa State and Kansas State teams going through coaching changes almost simultaneously said they were hanging up their cleats for the season. Notre Dame, the first team left out of the College Football Playoff<\/a>, followed a few hours later.<\/p>\n Mississippi State and Rice, both 5-7, swooped in to accept bids because they were among the first in line based on their Academic Progress Rate. The Bulldogs will play Wake Forest in the Duke\u2019s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Owls will face Texas State in the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth, Texas.<\/p>\n The Birmingham Bowl was still searching Sunday evening for an opponent to play Georgia Southern, according to On3.<\/a><\/p>\n Iowa State, Kansas State and Notre Dame weren\u2019t going to play in any of those lower-level bowls, but their decisions altered the order of selections and presumably allowed three lesser teams to move up and bowls at the bottom to scramble.<\/p>\n Notre Dame\u2019s decision to shut down for the year came after it was announced as the first team left out of the playoff.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a team, we\u2019ve decided to withdraw our name from consideration for a bowl game following the 2025 season,\u201d the Fighting Irish said in a statement on social media<\/a>. \u201cWe appreciate all the support from our families and fans, and we\u2019re hoping to bring the 12th national title to South Bend in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Notre Dame won its last 10 games following a three-point loss to Miami and a one-point loss to Texas A&M. The Fighting Irish, which lost to Ohio State in the national championship game last season, finished 10-2 and ranked No. 9 on Sunday in The Associated Press poll and No. 11 in the CFP rankings.<\/p>\n Miami got into the playoff as an at-large selection after moving from No. 12 to No. 10 in the final rankings. Notre Dame dropped a spot and will now stay home for the postseason for the first time since 2016.<\/p>\n The Big 12 Conference said it will fine Iowa State and Kansas State $500,000 each for opting out of bowl participation. Both schools are going through coaching transitions with Matt Campbell leaving Iowa State for Penn State<\/a> and Chris Klieman announcing his retirement.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWhile the conference acknowledges the difficult timing around coaching changes, the Big 12 is responsible for fulfilling its contractual obligations to its bowl partners,\u201d the Big 12 said in a statement.<\/p>\n Iowa State announced its players voted to not play in a bowl because the team doesn\u2019t have healthy players to safety practice and play. ISU did not mention the coaching change from Campbell to Jimmy Rogers in its statement.<\/p>\n The Cyclones sustained numerous injuries this season while going 8-4, and members of the athletics administration and the previous coaching staff met Sunday with the players to gauge their interest in a bowl.<\/p>\n \u201cThe administrative staff and coaches respect and support the players decision,\u201d athletic director Jamie Pollard said. \u201cOur student-athletes have had an incredible season and we are grateful for their leadership as we worked through this process with them today.\u201d<\/p>\n K-State athletic director Gene Taylor<\/a> said he had conversations with players and Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark before deciding to decline a bowl bid. The Wildcats were 6-6 after beating Colorado at home in their final home game.<\/p>\n \u201cThis decision was not taken lightly, but with our coaching staff transition and several uncertainties regarding player availability, I felt it was not in our best interest to try to field a team that was not representative of Kansas State University,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cWe applaud this group for fighting back from a 2-4 record to lead us to bowl eligibility yet again, and we are happy that our seniors were able to go out on top with a victory inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a>. AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a matter of hours Sunday, what had appeared to be a year no teams with losing records…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":432068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[200625,197871,1428,1369,1318,113981,28966,6323,2862,7776,8798,62039,200624,200623,19785,35607,49612,181121,200622,13874,24780,62,2732,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-432067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-brett-yormark","9":"tag-chris-klieman","10":"tag-college-football","11":"tag-college-sports","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-georgia-southern","14":"tag-ia-state-wire","15":"tag-in-state-wire","16":"tag-indiana","17":"tag-iowa","18":"tag-iowa-state-cyclones","19":"tag-iowa-state-cyclones-football","20":"tag-jamie-pollard","21":"tag-jimmy-rogers","22":"tag-kansas","23":"tag-kansas-state-wildcats","24":"tag-ks-state-wire","25":"tag-local-news-for-apple","26":"tag-matt-campbell","27":"tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","28":"tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish-football","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-sports-transactions","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}