Oregon State coach Jonathan Smith, a former standout quarterback at the school, led the Beavers to ... [+]
Given six wins are all that is necessary to advance to a bowl game, of which there are 41 this season, there are not many teams that have gone more than a couple of years without an invitation.
That said, there are a handful of teams that are bowl eligible for the first time since at least 2017. Among them is Oregon State, which snapped a string of seven bowl-less seasons that was tied for the third-longest drought behind Kansas (2008) and Louisiana-Monroe (2012).
Arkansas has gone the longest of any SEC team without playing in a bowl. That will change as the Hogs are assured of returning to the postseason.
Here is a look at the Beavers, the Razorbacks and other teams that are bowl eligible for the first time in at least a few years. Each team’s most recent bowl is noted.
Oregon State | 2013 Hawaii Bowl
The Beavers, who are 7-5 and went 6-0 at home, became bowl eligible with a 35-14 win over visiting Stanford on November 13. Following a season-opening loss at Purdue, Jonathan Smith’s team set itself up nicely by winning four in a row, including conference matchups over USC and Washington. The Beavers handed Pac-12 South champ Utah its only conference defeat.
Smith has experience when it comes to putting an end to bowl droughts in Corvallis. Under Dennis Erickson, the Beavers’ third all-time leading passer (9,680 yards) led the program to consecutive bowl appearances in 1999 and 2000. The ‘99 team put an end to decades of pigskin misery and a 34-season bowl drought. For his effort at his alma mater, Smith was extended through 2027 at a reported annual salary of more than $4.
East Carolina | 2014 Birmingham Bowl
Mike Houston was brought on board to clean up the mess still resonating from the unpardonable firing of Ruffin McNeil following the 2015 season. Three years into his tenure, Houston has the Pirates headed to a bowl game for the first time since 2014. ECU entered this season loaded with returning starters on both sides of the ball, something that helped them overcome an 0-2 start and 3-4 mark heading into the teeth of their American Conference schedule.
A win over South Florida on October 28 triggered a four-game win streak that guaranteed a bowl date and a shot at eight wins. Indeed, this year has been a jolt of much-needed fresh air for a fanbase that saw the Pirates participate in eight bowl games during a nine-season stretch of 2006 to 2014.
UTEP | 2014 New Mexico Bowl
A team that went 2-34 over a recent three-year stretch (2017-19) became bowl eligible in mid-October. A prosperous first half was due in large part to the Miners taking advantage of a mostly soft non-conference schedule and opening Conference-USA play against an Old Dominion team still finding its footing after sitting out 2020. Still, all credit is due to a team that won those games.
Dana Dimel was tasked with building a broken program when he inherited a team that went 0-12 in 2017 and had all of 10 scholarships to work with. Four years later, and having built up recruiting big time, the Miners have a shot at an eight-win season for the first time since going 8-4 under Mike Price in 2005, their first year as a C-USA member.
Arkansas quarterback KJ Jefferson heads into the bowl season having totaled more than 3,100 yards ... [+]
Arkansas | 2016 Belk Bowl
There is an asterisk with this entry, but not much of one. Despite going 3-7, the Razorbacks were invited to play TCU in last year’s Texas Bowl. In a virus-challenged season, the NCAA waived standard bowl eligibility requirements to allow as much flexibility as possible when it came to filling bowl slots. As it turned out, an uptick in COVID cases within the TCU program resulted in the game being canceled.
This season, under second-year coach Sam Pittman, the Razorbacks defeated then-No. 15 Texas and then-No. 7 Texas A&M during a 4-0 September. After losing three straight, they rebounded to win three in row, including a furious last-minute decision over then-No. 17 Mississippi State to clinch bowl eligibility. At 7-5, the Hogs, who have played seven teams that are currently or were at one point in the top 20, have a shot at eight wins for the first time since going 8-5 in 2015 under Bret Bielema.
Maryland | 2016 Quick Lane Bowl
The Terrapins went into their Thanksgiving weekend winner-becomes-bowl-eligible game at Rutgers having gone 2-21 in November over the course of the last six full seasons, including this one. The two wins? They were against the Scarlet Knights in 2015 and 2016. Make it three wins as Maryland rolled, 40-16. The Terps also needed to defeat RU at the end of 2016, the first season of Big Ten membership for both schools, to become bowl eligible.
Mike Locksley’s third season at the helm in College Park opened with a win over West Virginia that was the beginning of an undefeated (4-0) September. The perfect first month included a victory over Illinois, the first of three wins over sub-.500 conference opponents that ultimately clinched bowl eligibility. Otherwise, Maryland was outscored 281-100 in conference losses to Iowa, Ohio State, Minnesota, Penn State, Michigan State and Michigan.
Old Dominion | 2016 Bahamas Bowl
After not playing in 2020, the Monarchs were predictably sluggish during the season’s first half. A win over Louisiana Tech on October 30 snapped an 18-game losing streak against FBS opponents that dated to November 10, 2018.
The wins then began to pile up for Ricky Rahne’s team. Fueled in large part by a switch to redshirt freshman Hayden Wolff at quarterback, a 1-6 start gave way to a 5-0 finish that was capped by a bowl eligibility-clinching 56-34 thumping of visiting Charlotte last Saturday. The 2016 Bahamas Bowl is the only bowl ODU has been to since elevating to the FBS for the 2014 season.
Texas Tech | 2017 Birmingham Bowl
The Red Raiders have Jonathan Garibay to thank. It was Garibay’s 62-yard field goal as time expired that lifted Tech to a 41-38 win over visiting Iowa State. That improved the team’s record to 6-4 and bowl eligibility along with it. It is also the Red Raiders’ only win in their last five games. A 4-1 start gave way to a 2-5 slide that led to the firing of Matt Wells three weeks before Garibay’s heroics.
Former Texas Tech quarterback Sonny Cumbie, who returned to Lubbock (assistant 2009-13) this season to be the offensive coordinator after spending seven years in the same capacity at TCU, has served as the interim head coach and will remain the OC on new coach Joey McGuire’s staff. Cumbie threw for 520 yards in leading the Red Raiders to a 2004 Holiday Bowl victory over No. 4 Cal and was a member of the staff when Tech defeated Arizona State in the 2013 Holiday Bowl, the team’s last bowl win.
UCLA | 2017 Cactus Bowl
The Bruins will go to a bowl for the first time under Chip Kelly, who was 10-21 in his first three seasons in Westwood. A bowl victory would give UCLA nine wins and its most successful season since going 10-3 in 2014 under Jim Mora, Jr. Bowl appearances were fairly routine this century for UCLA, which starting in 2002 had a stretch of 12 bowl games in 14 years before going bowl-less in four of the past five.
The Bruins won five of their first seven games, including visiting LSU on September 4, to get to this point. Though neither of their eight wins was against a team that finished the regular season with a winning record, the Bruins won six games by double digits and finished strong by defeating Colorado, USC and Cal by a combined 81 points.
