ACC
The ACC has a “Tier I” bowl pool consisting of the Sun, Belk, Music City, and Pinstripe Bowls. After Notre Dame and Virginia Tech are selected for the Citrus and Camping World Bowls, the next group of four teams, as of now, will be Pitt, Wake Forest, Louisville, and … someone. Seriously, any of the ACC’s 6-6 teams could really be that final team. For now I’m giving that to Florida State, but it could be anyone. Pitt played in the Sun Bowl last year, so don’t expect a repeat of that.
Big Ten
The Big Ten bowl situation is complicated. In essence, the league works with all of its bowls to secure the best possible destination. However, the contracts stipulate that, for the main Big Ten bowls, that each bowl needs at least five different teams in six years. This is the sixth and final year of these contracts. The Outback Bowl is the only bowl to not meet that stipulation yet. Therefore, the Outback Bowl cannot host Iowa, Wisconsin, or Michigan this year. I explain, in detail, all of the issues for the selections for every Big Ten bowl in another post.
SEC
The SEC has a pool of six bowls. Those will be Texas A&M, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi State for the Outback, Gator, Music City, Texas, Belk, and Liberty Bowls. Because of Missouri’s pending bowl ban, the weakness of the SEC’s bottom teams this year (and with four SEC teams currently in NY6 slots), there will only be four teams for this pool of six bowls. Therefore, the Liberty and Texas Bowls will not get an SEC team.