Bowl season to begin on exact same day as Army-Navy

• Heather Dinich, ESPN Senior Citizen WriterJun 6, 2024, 04:22 PM ET

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  • College football reporter
  • Joined ESPN.com in 2007
  • Graduate of Indiana University

This year’s bowl season will start on the second Saturday in December, a spot on the calendar usually scheduled 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 begins Dec. 14 with the Cricket Event Bowl (noon, ABC) and consists of the New Year’s Six bowls in the broadened 12-team College Football Playoff and the 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 assist make room for the broadened 12-team CFP, which begins this fall.Editor’s Picks 2 Related”Clearly the

broadened College Football Playoff is going to include another level of excitement to our postseason,”Bowl Season executive director Nick Carparelli said. “With the opening-round games being used that Saturday that had typically been reserved for the very first day of bowl season, we were forced to move some games to the week prior to that, notably 2 games on Dec. 14, which were set up around the Army-Navy game. It was really crucial to us that we protected that time slot but at the exact same time supplying 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 vacation last season.” Every year is different because there are constantly quirks in the calendar,”Carparelli said.”… If you’re a purist and you do not always like the fact that the games are beginning earlier, the idea that there are more postseason Christmas games might help balance that out.”The busiest day of bowl season will be Dec. 28, which features 8 games, including the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl presented by Gin & Juice by Dre and Snoop. The “distinct sponsorship contract “was revealed by the Arizona Bowl in May and will continue to feature groups from the Mountain West and Mid-American conferences. It was the very first alcohol partner as a providing sponsor in an NCAA bowl game.The Hawai’i Bowl(8 p.m., ESPN )returns to its standard area on Christmas Eve, and there are 3 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 5 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 start at midday 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 booked for the CFP quarterfinal triple-header, beginning with the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl (1 p.m. ET, ESPN), the Rose Bowl Game provided by Prudential(5 p.m. ET, ESPN), and the Allstate Sugar Bowl (8:45 p.m., ESPN). Championship game 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 figure out the other challenger for the 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 Event Bowl at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium includes the champions of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and the Southwestern Athletic Conference in the championship game for the traditionally Black institution of higher learnings.