Editing Mid-American Conference (section)

===College Football Playoff===
The MAC champion, like the other "Group of 5" conferences receives an automatic berth in one of the so-called [[New Year's Six]] bowl games associated with the [[College Football Playoff]] under either of the following circumstances:
* Selected as one of the top four teams overall by the CFP selection committee, in which case the team will play in a CFP national semifinal.
* Ranked by the committee as the top champion among the five conferences ([[American Athletic Conference|American]], [[C-USA]], MAC, [[Mountain West Conference|MW]], [[Sun Belt Conference|Sun Belt]]) given access to one of the CFP bowls, in which case the team will play in the so-called "Access Bowl" as an at-large selection.

The first "Access Bowl" berth in 2014 went to Boise State (MW); the 2015 berth went to Houston (American). The MAC got its first berth in 2016 with Western Michigan, who had an undefeated regular season that year and finished ranked at No. 15 in the [[AP Poll]].

During the era of the now-defunct [[Bowl Championship Series]] (BCS), one MAC team appeared in a BCS bowl game. In [[2012 NCAA Division I FBS football season|2012]], [[2012 Northern Illinois Huskies football team|NIU]] qualified by being ranked in the top 16 (15th) in the season's final BCS standings, and also higher than at least one champion of a conference that received an automatic berth in a BCS game. In the 2012 season, two such conference champions were ranked below NIU: [[2012 Big East Conference football season|Big East]] champion [[2012 Louisville Cardinals football team|Louisville]], who was ranked 22nd, and [[2012 Big Ten Conference football season|Big Ten]] champion [[2012 Wisconsin Badgers football team|Wisconsin]], who was unranked. NIU lost to [[2012 Florida State Seminoles football team|Florida State]] in the [[2013 Orange Bowl|Orange Bowl]].