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Your 5-7 Rutgers Scarlet Knights are BOWL BOUND Baby
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There are only a few days left in 2021, but this might be my favorite story of the year.
Rutgers, which went 5-7 this season, is replacing Texas A&M in the Gator Bowl:
NCAA Football Oversight Committee decides today to follow policy in regard to allow 5-7 teams based on APR to replace A&M in Gator Bowl instead of a bowl-eligible team that already has played in bowl, sources told @ActionNetworkHQ. This means, Rutgers is 1st option to play Wake
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) December 23, 2021
What happened here is that TAMU had to pull out due to a combination of COVID issues and injuries. Their AD told ESPN that “the program was down to 38 scholarship position players, of which 20 were offensive and defensive linemen.” They were 8-4 this season and beat Alabama, who was ranked #1 at the time.
Their opponent, Wake Forest, went 10-3 and lost to Pitt in the ACC title game. But now Rutgers gets first dibs over other teams because of academics, if you can believe it.
Nicole Auerbach at The Athletic:
Rutgers has the highest Academic Progress Rate (APR) score among all available 5-7 teams, which should give them the nod. Bowl selection guidelines allow for teams with 5-7 records to be awarded bowl bids based on APR scores in the event there are not enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all bowl slots nationally.
This is amazing. Rutgers goes 5-7 but receives a backdoor berth to their most prestigious bowl EVER because of academic progress rate. They haven’t been to a bowl since 2014, and even the 11-2 squad back in 2006 ended up in the Texas Bowl, because the Big East had crappy tie-ins and 12-1 Louisville claimed the Orange Bowl while 11-2 WVU went to the Gator. Rutgers was ranked #16 in that game and the Knights beat the stuffing out K State.
Wake Forest vs. RUTGERS in the Gator Bowl. Get hyped!
I’m still laughing at how the winner of Maryland vs. Rutgers got the Pinstripe Bowl and the loser was rewarded with the Gator Bowl
— Rich Moy (@rich_moy) December 23, 2021
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com