2015 College Football Playoff To be Held on New Year’s Eve
The 2015 College Football Playoff Semifinals will be played on New Year’s Eve, not New Year’s Day like in year one of the new system. The “New Year’s Six” schedule of elite bowl games will be played as follows:
Thursday, December 31st:
- 11 am – Peach Bowl
- 3 pm – Cotton Bowl (Playoff Semifinal)
- 7 pm – Orange Bowl (Playoff Semifinal)
Friday, January 1st:
- Noon – Fiesta Bowl
- 4 pm – Rose Bowl
- 7:30 pm – Sugar Bowl
That’s the exact same schedule as the 2014-15 season, but the bowls for the semifinal games are different. Last year it was the Rose and Sugar Bowls, so the games were on New Year’s Day. For the 2015-16 season, the same dates were held, putting the biggest games on New Year’s Eve.
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A couple of comments here….
1. Are they going to keep this same schedule every year? That would mean the Peach Bowl and Fiesta Bowl would be hosting semifinal playoff games at lunch time in 2016-17. That doesn’t seem right.
2. I thought the College Football Playoff was going to “take back New Year’s Day”. I guess that was just the New Year’s Six set of bowls.
3. It doesn’t make any sense to play the biggest games on New Year’s Eve when you can play them on New Year’s Day. The former is not a holiday like the latter is. While a lot of people take off at least a half day on NYE, not nearly as many people do as the ones who take off New Year’s Day. 3:00 Central for a playoff game on a Thursday? I just don’t get it.
4. The Rose Bowl is the biggest joke of all the bowls. I would bet plenty of money they are the reason the same schedule is being maintained – they just cannot give up that 4:00 time slot.
5. The best thing to do here would be to play the first semifinal game at 7:00 on New Year’s Eve, then the second one at 4:00 on New Year’s Day. That gives people who work for a living plenty of prime TV watching time to see the biggest games of the year.
The national championship game will be played on Monday, January 11th in Phoenix, AZ.