With only 119 teams in Division 1-A … er, the Football Bowl Subdivision … and 64 bowl slots, any team with half a clue would find it’s way into post-season play.

Well, that’s true. But still a few teams you’d think would be bowling won’t be.

Here’s what’s going on: Six wins is the minimum to make a bowl game. Problem is an excess of teams in the SEC (ten), Big Ten (ten), and Big East (six, at least) will reach that number, more than their respective league tie-ins. And while the Big 12 will likely fall one team short of the 6-win requirement for its eight (!) bowl tie-ins, and the Pac-10 two squads short of it’s six tie-ins (unless UCLA upsets Oregon or USC and Arizona/Washington runs the table), a 6-6 team in one of those out-of-bid leagues shouldn’t count on grabbing one of those at-large spots: A year-old NCAA rule forces games with an open slot to choose a 7-win (or 8- or 9-victory) squad over a 6-win team (note: There’s no problems if you have six wins and your league still has a guaranteed slot remaining).

Thus, say Toledo reaches seven wins, but the MAC is out of slots. The Rockets would get into a bowl game over a BCS team. Who?

Louisville could be first on the list. Read more about the Cards plight after the jump.

The Cards are the classic example of this rule: UofL is 5-5 with games at South Florida and home to Rutgers remaining. A split is realistic, but with only four non-BCS Big East tie-ins, Connecticut, USF, Rutgers, and Cincinnati will likely take all the bowl slots (welcome to Canada, Scarlet Knights!). If Rutgers loses at home to Pittsburgh AND Louisville, the Cards would have the tie breaker on the Scarlet Knights to get the Big East’s final slot.

Indiana has waited 14 years to make a bowl game, and when it beat Ball State two weeks ago to reach bowl eligibility, Hoosier fans started celebrating. Guess what? It may be too early: Ten teams have six wins in the Big Ten already, all guaranteed to either be ahead of IU (or have the tie-breaker) if the Hoosiers lose this week to Purdue. Even if IU wins, it still likely won’t get one of the Big Ten’s seven bowl tie-ins, but it would just about be assured of playing in either the Armed Forces Bowl, Las Vegas Bowl (two Pac-10 tie-ins) or the Texas Bowl (Big 12 bowl tie-in.

Michigan State, Iowa and Northwestern all have the same problem: They enter the final week at 6-5 and need victories to cinch up a slot. MSU or Iowa seems the likely winner of the Big Ten’s final bowl tie-in: The Motor City Bowl in Detroit (probably MSU), and Iowa is in better shape because, unless Northwestern upsets Illinois, the Hawkeyes will finish ahead of the Hoosiers, Spartans and Wildcats in the Big Ten standings. Still, a win by MSU over Penn State should get it somewhere. Northwestern seems the longest shot.

Miami (Fl.) isn’t part of this scenario: If the Hurricanes can find one win at either Virginia Tech or at Boston College, they’ll probably bump the North Carolina State or Maryland winner from the final ACC slot. That said, if you watched Virginia’s 48-0 drubbing at Miami Saturday night, you know winning one of the final two may be difficult.