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After their recent five-game winning streak to go to 6-5 on the season, Appalachian State officially filed a waiver with the NCAA on Tuesday, asking to be eligible for a bowl game selection
One caveat for the Apps is that they have to win their final game, a home contest versus 1-9 Idaho this Saturday, to be even considered. One of their wins was over FCS Campbell, who doesn't offer any football scholarships. This puts the Apps at only five bowl-counting wins for the year so far.
Georgia Southern AD Tom Kleinlein said in an interview Monday that he expects an answer for their waiver (officially filed on Monday) before the weekend and could get it anytime.
If the waiver is denied, both school have the option to appeal, which would take a day or two to decide.
App State, Georgia Southern, along with Old Dominion (who is 5-6 going into their season finale versus Florida Atlantic), are first-year FBS schools and under NCAA rules, are not eligible for bowl consideration. The loophole here is that if there aren't enough bowl-eligible teams, transitional teams with six bowl-counting wins are next to be considered.
The chances of a bowl game for all three are very slim. There are 38 bowl games, making 76 open spots. Out of the 126 full FBS programs, so far 71 are bowl eligible. The winner of Virginia/Virginia Tech and Illinois/Northwestern this weekend will be bowl eliglble so that makes 73.
After that, there are 13 teams who could still reach bowl eligibility. Two of them, Temple and Navy, have two games left. The others, Pitt, Michigan, UAB, Ohio, Akron, Fresno State, Cal, Tennessee, Kentucky, Oregon State and Oklahoma State have one game left to reach the six-win plateau. So it is very unlikely the transitional teams are going bowling this year, even if the waivers are granted.