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Heather Dinich, ESPN Senior Writer
This year’s bowl season will begin on the second Saturday in December, a spot on the calendar typically reserved for the Army-Navy game, which for the first time will be played between two bowls while maintaining its traditional 3 p.m. ET time slot on CBS.
The postseason lineup starts Dec. 14 with the Cricket Celebration Bowl (noon, ABC) and includes the New Year’s Six bowls in the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff and the national championship game on Jan. 20.
The Army-Navy game will be followed on Dec. 14 by the Camellia Bowl at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN. It was an expected shift in the 33-game bowl season calendar to help make room for the expanded 12-team CFP, which begins this fall.
“Obviously the expanded College Football Playoff is going to add another level of excitement to our postseason,” Bowl Season executive director Nick Carparelli said. “With the opening-round games being played on that Saturday that had traditionally been reserved for the first day of bowl season, we were forced to move some games to the week prior to that, notably two games on Dec. 14, which were scheduled around the Army-Navy game. It was very important to us that we protected that time slot but at the same time providing a full day of college football, which I think our fans will enjoy.”
Carparelli said there are only 11 games before Christmas this year, compared with 18 before the holiday last season.
“Every year is different because there are always oddities in the calendar,” Carparelli said. “… If you’re a purist and you don’t necessarily like the fact that the games are starting earlier, the idea that there are more postseason Christmas games may help balance that out.”
The busiest day of bowl season will be Dec. 28, which features eight games, including the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl presented by Gin & Juice by Dre and Snoop. The “unique sponsorship agreement” was announced by the Arizona Bowl in May and will continue to feature teams from the Mountain West and Mid-American conferences. It was the first alcohol partner as a presenting sponsor in an NCAA bowl game.
The Hawai’i Bowl (8 p.m., ESPN) returns to its traditional spot on Christmas Eve, and there are three games Dec. 26: the Detroit Bowl (2 p.m. ET, ESPN), the Guaranteed Rate Bowl (5:30 p.m., ESPN) and the 68 Ventures Bowl (9 p.m. ET, ESPN).
There will be five games on New Year’s Eve, including the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), which is hosting a CFP quarterfinal game this year. The New Year’s Eve bowl games begin at noon on ESPN with the ReliaQuest Bowl, followed by the Tony The Tiger Sun Bowl at 2 p.m. ET on CBS, the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl at 3 p.m. on ABC, and the Texas Bowl at 3:30 p.m. on ESPN.
New Year’s Day is reserved for the CFP quarterfinal triple-header, starting with the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl (1 p.m. ET, ESPN), the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential (5 p.m. ET, ESPN), and the Allstate Sugar Bowl (8:45 p.m., ESPN).
Bowl games are lined up through Jan. 4, with an open window then until the CFP semifinals begin Jan. 9 with the Capital One Orange Bowl (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). The Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) will determine the other opponent for the national championship game in Atlanta on Jan. 20.
The time and date for the DirecTV Holiday Bowl will be announced later.
The bowl season will conclude Jan. 30 with the East-West Shrine Bowl at 8 p.m. ET on the NFL Network. The Celebration Bowl at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium features the champions of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and the Southwestern Athletic Conference in the national championship for the historically Black colleges and universities.
