The regular season has ended for the 2022 college football season, and we're really no closer to knowing who will be coming to Shreveport for the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl. The 2022 Indy Bowl game will be played on Friday, December 23rd at 2pm. Tickets for the game are available now, even if we don't know who will be playing in the game yet.

As the regular season ends, there have been some more firm predictions for the teams playing in the Independence Bowl, but really we have more questions than answers.

First...Army. Right now the Independence Bowl has an agreement in place with two programs to take automatic bids to the bowl in alternating years. Last year it was BYU, who brought the highest ranked team outside of the College Playoff program to Shreveport. This year, Army is the program that has an automatic bid to the Indy Bowl. But in order to accept the bid, Army needs to have 6 wins to achieve bowl eligibility.

Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl - Houston v Army
Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images
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Which would make for an awesome showdown against Navy this year, because Army is at 5 wins, and that 6th win against Navy would probably send them bowl'ing. But there's a little note to be made here. Those 6 wins to achieve bowl eligibility are supposed to be against Division 1 Bowl Subdivision teams. Unfortunately, 2 of Army's wins come against Villanova and Colgate, which are not Bowl Subdivision teams. Meaning that Army actually only has 3 bowl eligibility wins right now, so even beating Navy would only give them 4, and not truly bowl eligible.

There's a weird chance that the NCAA could grant them a waiver and allow them to accept a bowl bid, but that's a little bit of a long shot.

So if not Army, then who? Well, the Indy Bowl has an agreement with the American Athletic Conference for half of the bowl this year. Then they came to a backup agreement with the Sun Belt Conference, who will serve as Army's backup for this year. So if Army can't go, then a team from the Sun Belt will make their way to Shreveport. Which could actually be good news for fans.

Check out some of the projections from major publications here

2022 Independence Bowl Projections At End Of The Regular Season

These are projections from major publications for the 2022 Independence Bowl in Shreveport

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