Dec. 17 is kickoff for NM Bowl
The New Mexico Bowl has a date and kickoff time — 12:15 p.m. on Dec. 17 — after the bowl schedule for the upcoming season was released on Thursday.
The bowl will air on ESPN. It is slated to feature a team from the Mountain West vs. a team from a pool of leagues — Conference USA, the American Athletic Conference, the Sun Belt or the Mid-American Conference.
Fresno State defeated UTEP in last year’s edition of the game.
In earlier years, the New Mexico Bowl was the leadoff game for the bowl season.
Not so anymore.
The games begin on Dec. 16 with the Bahamas Bowl and the Cure Bowl in Orlando, Florida. They end with the College Football Playoff championship on Jan. 9 at the NFL stadium in Inglewood, California.
Meanwhile, the Sugar Bowl has been moved off its usual primetime spot to 10 a.m. MT Dec. 31 to avoid a conflict with a Monday night NFL game.
The CFP semifinals also will be held Dec. 31, a Saturday, at the Peach and Fiesta bowls.
With Jan. 1 falling on Sunday, the games usually played on New Year’s Day were moved to Jan. 2, when the national holiday is observed. The move to Monday, Jan. 2, is common in college football to avoid conflicting with the NFL.
But ESPN found itself with a conflict that day: The NFL has scheduled the final Monday regular-season game for that night, which forced a relocation by the New Orleans-based Sugar Bowl on the schedule.
The Rose Bowl is scheduled for a 3 p.m. MT start Jan. 2 on ESPN, and will precede the Bills at Bengals game.
The last time the Sugar Bowl was played before Jan. 1 was 1995 when it was a Dec. 31 game between Virginia Tech and Texas.
The Orange Bowl will be played the night of Dec. 30 and the Cotton Bowl will also be played on Jan. 2, with an 11 a.m. MT kickoff scheduled.
MORE SCHEDULING: Eastern New Mexico released its 2022 slate Thursday, and the Greyhounds will play both fellow in-state NCAA Division schools (Sept. 1 at New Mexico Highlands, Nov. 12 at home vs. Western New Mexico) in the same season for the first time since 2002.
New Mexico State learned its start time for the Sept. 10 game at UTEP thanks to the Conference USA schedule release. Kickoff is 7 p.m. NMSU joins C-USA in July 2023.
GEORGIA: Coach Kirby Smart is about to get a new deal, and it’s going to be among the highest-paying in college athletics, UGA President Jere Morehead confirmed Thursday. Smart currently makes $7.1 million annually in a contract that was reworked in 2018. Smart’s peers in the coaching business have received 10-year deals that pay them upward of $10 million a year.
New USC coach Lincoln Riley, who left Oklahoma to take over Southern Cal’s football program, reportedly signed a 10-year contract worth $110 million, according to published reports, and currently is the highestpaid football coach in college athletics.
LSU’s Brian Kelly is considered the SEC’s highest-paid coach after accepting a 10-year, $100 million contract to leave his job at Notre Dame.
MIAMI: Alonzo Highsmith is back with the Hurricanes. The former player and NFL executive was named the school’s new general manager of football operations.