Last December, we were trying to make sense of the always-silly bowl projection picture, which is typically futile. The whole exercise was even more unusual last season because entering the final game of the regular season, a 7-4 West Virginia was seemingly at the mercy of 5-6 Kansas State.

The 40 bowls weren’t going to have 80 available teams with winning records, so some five-win teams were going to make it, and the Wildcats, because of their academic standing, figured to be one of them and would likely be selected in the Big 12’s order before WVU because WVU did the Liberty Bowl the year  before.

It was weird.

The Liberty could pick Kansas State, regardless of its record, against an SEC team, if only because the Mountaineers played in the Liberty last season. That would send WVU to the Cactus Bowl in Phoenix against a Pac-12 team. Both bowls are Jan. 2.

However, the Big 12’s bowls do not have to pick traditionally eligible teams (six or more wins) before they pick a five-win team. WVU could end up in the Liberty again or in the Texas if the league, the bowls and the Mountaineers work together to avoid a repeat appearance in the Liberty.

The Liberty could pick Kansas State because it is not obligated to pick a traditionally eligible team before a 5-7 team.

“I probably think we’ve got a few too many bowl games if that’s the case,” Holgorsen said. “Our stance here is we don’t think it should be that way, to be honest with you. I think it ought to be 6-6, the way it’s always been.

“There have been rare instances, and I agree with it, when a 6-6 team went to their conference championship game and lost to get to 6-7. I think they deserve a bowl game. Other than that, I think you’ve got to have [six wins].”

Well, about that …

Ultimately, it was wasted breath. K-State beat the Mountaineers, and the outcome likely didn’t matter to the bowls because the Liberty wasn’t going to repeat a participant like WVU. Maybe the Mountaineers land in the Texas Bowl if they win that game, but that was, at its best, a long shot.

That misses the point, though.

The problem wasn’t that teams with losing records were getting into bowls. That’s what the games and the television networks get when they expand to a width the sport cannot sustain. The problem was nobody ever thought of establishing some sort of common sense and saying a team that’s eligible by ordinary means should be picked before teams that are eligible by bogus means.

That’s been fixed.

The new rule, which was implemented by the NCAA’s Division I Council on Wednesday, will be put in place for the upcoming season and says bowl-eligible teams with 6-6 records must be selected for bowl games before any 5-7 teams are considered.

The NCAA’s football oversight committee first made the recommendation for the new rule to the council, following a season that saw only 77 teams eligible for the 80 bowl slots. The three remaining slots were filled by 5-7 teams — Nebraska, Minnesota and San Jose State.

“It’s impossible to project how many eligible bowl teams we will have,” said Bob Bowlsby, chair of the football oversight committee and commissioner of the Big 12 Conference.

“We think we have a selection process in the postseason that makes sense and is fair to the schools and the bowls.”