Here’s how likely (or unlikely) your team is to make a bowl game this year

In each week’s set of college football stat profiles, I have include a team’s odds of reaching certain benchmarks, including bowl eligibility. Now’s a good time to check on where teams stand in that regard.

First things first: there are 39 bowls, not including the national title game, so at least 78 teams need to reach six wins. If they don’t, some five-win teams will make it, based on APR scores.

At this moment, 38 teams have reached the six-win mark. According to S&P+, 20 others have at least a 95 percent chance of reaching six wins in the coming weeks, and a total of 79 teams have a 50 percent chance or better (78 if you eliminate Ole Miss, which is ineligible for the postseason).

But those are odds. They shift from week to week. And Week 9 saw a few teams’ fortunes change pretty drastically.

(Quick note: until it’s clear there aren’t enough 6-6 teams to fill bowl slots, I’m defining “bowl eligibility odds” as a team’s odds of reaching six wins.)

At 4-1 with a top-50 S&P+ ranking, Indiana appeared mostly safe a few weeks ago. But now the Hoosiers have lost four in a row and fallen to 76th. They’ll likely have to pull home upsets against both Maryland and Purdue — unlikely, but certainly not impossible — to reach the magic number of six.

Baylor suffered a double loss of sorts: not only did the Bears lose in Morgantown as projected, but they looked so awful in doing so that they fell from 59th to 77th in S&P+, severely damaging their win probabilities in their four remaining games.

This has been a uniquely strange season for Northwestern. In one week, they went from barely better than 50/50 in terms of making a bowl to being 1.5 games up in the race for the Big Ten West title. The Wildcats have now beaten Michigan State and Wisconsin and damn near beat Michigan, too. Also: they lost to Akron and tried as hard as they could to lose to Nebraska and Rutgers. Even by Pat Fitzgerald’s standards, this has been odd.

Pitt is following a similar path. The Panthers began 2-3 with a loss to reeling UNC and blowout losses to Penn State and UCF. They then handed Syracuse one of its only two losses and came within a touchdown of handing Notre Dame its first loss. With a track-meet win over Duke, they are now tied in the loss column in the ACC Coastal race, and if they upset Virginia in Charlottesville this weekend — there’s nothing in either team’s history suggesting they can’t — they’ll quite possibly become the leaders outright (if Virginia Tech loses to BC, anyway).

The Minnesota-Indiana and Georgia Tech-Virginia Tech games produced some pretty impressive cumulative swings — a combined 55 percent for UM-IU and 41 percent for GT-VT. Here are some games that could produce similar swings, depending on the result.

These three only swing if the home team wins, obviously (current record and odds listed):

This one’s an eliminator — the path to 6-6 is almost impossible for the loser.

Here’s a bonus game that is particularly important to one of two teams:

Ole Miss might not be eligible, but the Rebels can severely damage South Carolina’s odds. If the Gamecocks lose, they’ll get to five wins against Chattanooga, but the sixth win would have to come either at Florida or at Clemson, unless the Gamecocks schedule an emergency game in Championship Weekend. Despite playing five home games to only two on the road, Will Muschamp’s team wasn’t able to secure bowl eligibility before finishing with a run of three road games in four.

Your first season almost feels like two in one. We try to reach a referendum on how you’re doing as quickly as possible, and then the plot twists as the season progresses. For some, the goal was loftier than bowl eligibility, but that would be a nice first step for others.

This list doesn’t include Florida (Dan Mullen), Georgia Southern (Chad Lunsford), or UCF (Josh Heupel), which are already eligible. It also doesn’t include Arkansas (Chad Morris), Kent State (Sean Lewis), Oregon State (Jonathan Smith), Rice (Mike Bloomgren), or UTEP (Dana Dimel), which are at a big, fat 0 percent.

Insert the Jim Carrey, “So you’re saying there’s a chance” GIF, UCLA and Nebraska fans.

This isn’t a huge year for the hot seat. Auburn’s Gus Malzahn at least briefly saved himself with an easy win over Ole Miss. More recently, USC’s Clay Helton has found himself in increasingly hot water, falling to 4-4.

Here’s a quick look at a few coaches that, if you listen to their fans/boosters, really need to win a few more games.

The A&M game is awfully important because his Tigers still face trips to Georgia and Alabama and could or should be double-digit underdogs in both. Lose to the Aggies, and you’re staring 6-6 in the face after beginning in the top 10.

Really, only Missouri fans think Odom’s on the hot seat, but after a likely loss at Florida this weekend (Mizzou’s win probability is a decent 39 percent), the Tigers will have to win at least two or three (Vanderbilt, at Tennessee, Arkansas) to secure bowl eligibility. It’s not a given.

This was expected to be a bit of a reset year, but ... woof.

Sitake’s probably not going anywhere, but the Cougars have gone from 3-1 and ranked to losers of three of four. And they have to play at Boise State this week.

Not sure where the bar is set regarding Johnson and whether he might get fired or retire. But the Yellow Jackets have been rejuvenated, winning three of four. Win at UNC and beat either Miami or Virginia at home, and you’ve scored a somewhat surprising postseason bid.

The Redhawks will have to pull a road upset against either Buffalo or NIU and beat Ohio at home to reach 6-6.

The Commodores lost five of six to fall to 3-5, but the win over Arkansas provided a lifeline. They still have to win two of three (at Missouri, Ole Miss, Tennessee) to get to six.

Wins over WKU and Southern Miss have kept the 49ers at .500 and technically in the C-USA race. Their final four games, though: at Tennessee, at Marshall, FIU, at FAU. Yikes.

The Cardinals have lost their last two conference games by a combined 60 and will likely win one more game at most.

Really, really disappointing season in Amherst.