New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day will provide even less of a college football cornucopia than usual this season.
With the new college football playoff system taking over December 31 and January 1, the non-playoff bowl games have had to find new dates on the calendar. ESPN.com reported Friday that only two non-playoff bowls were expected to take place on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, compared to eight last year.
The Capital One Bowl and Outback Bowl are both expected to remain on January 1. The Capital One Bowl would stay in its current 1 PM ET timeslot on ABC, while the Outback Bowl would move to 11 AM ET on ESPN2 — its traditional timeslot until 2011. Meanwhile, zero non-playoff games are scheduled for December 31.
Among the bowls to change dates, the Gator Bowl has announced a move to January 2, the Sun Bowl is expected to move to the weekend of December 27, and the Heart of Dallas and Liberty are expected to move to yet-undisclosed dates.
The playoff bowl schedule for this season includes the Peach, Orange and Fiesta on December 31 and the Cotton, Rose and Sugar on January 1. The Rose and Sugar will host this year’s semifinals.
(Fri. news from ESPN.com)
