BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- College football is moving closer toward using Academic Progress Rate scores to fill every bowl game this season. Miami's decision today to again self-impose a postseason ban means there may not be enough 6-6 teams for 70 bowl spots.

There are 62 bowl-eligible teams with two weeks left. Even Football Bowl Executive Director Wright Waters tentatively projects only 69 teams with at least a 6-6 record.

Birmingham's hopes for an SEC team at the BBVA Compass Bowl hinge on either Missouri or Ole Miss winning this week. Ole Miss (5-6) is home against Mississippi State and Missouri (5-6) travels to Texas A&M.

Waters' figures of bowl-eligible teams include Georgia Tech (6-5), which learned today it's definitely playing in the ACC Championship Game with Miami out. The Yellow Jackets would be 6-7 if they lose to Georgia and Florida State in the ACC Championship Game.

The NCAA is meeting today to discuss Georgia Tech getting a bowl waiver in advance of the ACC Championship Game, Waters said. UCLA received a bowl waiver with a 6-6 record last year prior to losing the Pac-12 Championship Game.

"There's a precedent," Waters said. "I think the ACC will get a waiver in advance."

With Miami, Ohio State, Penn State and North Carolina facing postseason bans, the NCAA created contingency plans to fill bowls if needed. Assuming Georgia Tech gets the waiver in advance and there aren't enough 6-6 teams, Wright thinks the deciding factor for choosing ineligible teams will go straight to the last tiebreaker: APR scores.

In that situation, the five 5-7 teams that have the highest APR scores will be put in a pool for bowls to select and negotiate over, Waters said. All bowl-eligible teams will have to be selected by a bowl first before moving on to the APR teams.

"Which means there's going to be a little bit of a bickering contest when you have two bowls and both want (a 5-7) Wake Forest (over a lower-profile bowl-eligible team)," Waters said. "It'll be, 'You take 'em (the lower-profile team). No, you take 'em."

No one will know who the 5-7 teams are until the season ends. As of now, the top four- or five-win bowl contenders based on APR scores are Rice, Wake Forest, Missouri, Virginia Tech and Utah. After that, the APR order is Baylor, Pitt, West Virginia and Marshall, followed by several others.

So because of APR scores, Missouri could finish 5-7 and still find itself in a bowl, perhaps even Birmingham's if the other bowl-eligible teams are placed into different games first.

The SEC won't fill the Independence Bowl, which was added before the season as the league's last tie-in after the SEC expanded. Birmingham's BBVA Compass Bowl and Memphis' Liberty Bowl share the SEC's next-to-last pick.

Because Memphis got the SEC pick ahead of Birmingham last year, Birmingham gets the first pick among those bowls this year, if there are enough teams. If not, Birmingham would be ahead of Memphis in 2013, which is the final year of the current bowl contracts.

If the SEC doesn't play in Birmingham, it would be the third time that's happened in their five-year bowl relationship. The Big East, which is supposed to play the SEC in Birmingham, may also not fill all of its slots.

That could mean Bowling Green vs. Louisiana-Monroe at Legion Field.

E-mail: jsolomon@al.com. Follow @jonsol

Corrected at 3:16 p.m. that Ole Miss-Mississppi State game is in Oxford. Also, Utah would be in the top 5 APR pool if it wins its final game.