ESPN reworks bowl schedule to fill lengthy playoff gap
College football’s bowl season will begin on a Friday, and several minor bowls have been pushed back on the calendar to fill 15 days between the playoff semifinals and national championship.
ESPN on Thursday released a schedule for 35 bowl games to appear on its networks in December and January.
In recent years, the bowl season started on a Saturday before Christmas with several games. This season’s bowls will begin Friday, Dec. 20, with the Bahamas Bowl at 11 a.m. PT. The Frisco Bowl will be played later that day. The next day, six games, including the Celebration Bowl, which matches teams from historically black colleges in the Southwestern Athletic Conference and Mid-eastern Athletic Conference, will air on either ESPN or ABC.
The College Football Playoff semifinals are scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 28. The championship game is set for Jan. 13. The time between the two games is the longest by far since the College Football Playoff started in the 2014 season. The semifinals had originally been scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 31, but were moved off New Year’s Eve because TV ratings for the first semifinals played on that day in 2015 took a sharp drop from the first playoff.
At least 15 games will be played in between this year’s semifinals and title game, including the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl on Jan. 3. The Mobile Alabama Bowl on Jan. 6 will be ESPN’S final bowl before the national championship in New Orleans.
The Hawaii Bowl has moved back to the night of Christmas Eve. The game in Honolulu has been played on that date 13 times in its 17-year history.
The First Responders Bowl in Dallas, which was canceled last season after severe storms swept through the area not long after kickoff between Boston College and Boise State, is moving from the Cotton Bowl to SMU’S Ford Stadium. The Dallas Morning News reported a conflict with the NHL’S Winter Classic at the Cotton Bowl led to the change of venue.
The dates for five bowl games to which ESPN does not own the rights are expected to be announced this month. The Cure Bowl and Arizona Bowl will be aired by CBS Sports Network. The Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, will air on CBS, continuing a long tradition. Fox holds the rights to the Redbox Bowl in San Francisco and the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, which will be on Fox Sports 1.