Drip… Drip…. Drip, no that's not the leaky faucet in the non-existent CBR break room. That sound you are hearing is the slow leak of information coming out of the College Football Playoff powers that be. The latest of which is the announcement of the rotation and dates for the semi-final hosts and remaining bowl games.
For fans this is perhaps the best piece of news to come out so far this week as the semi-finals and bowl games, tentatively being called the lame (but working title) "New Year's Bowls", will all revolve around the one time of year everyone's attention turns to college football – New Years Day.
According to Jeremy Fowler's article the semi-final's will be part of a back-to-back-to-back triple header on both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
This is a move most fans of the game have been dying for since the days of the BCS games being spread out over a week after New Year's Day. It returns the most important games of the college football calendar to their rightful home surrounding the beginning of the New Year.
It gives college football a destination, a marker that every sports fan will know – kind of like they know that the middle of March is when March Madness kicks into full gear. It's smart business and for the purists amongst us it's a nod to a day when things made sense in college football.
Thanks for throwing us a bone, btw.
But, as for how it will all work out, here's how it will all break down according to Fowler:
In the first year of the playoff in 2014-15, the first two semifinal games — the Rose and — will be played on Jan. 1 at 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. The Cotton Bowl, one of the six bowls in the playoff rotation every three years, will also be on New Year's Day.
Meanwhile, the Orange, Chick-fil-A and Fiesta will be on New Year's Eve 2014.
In 2015-16, the semifinals (Cotton and Orange) will be on New Year's Eve, along with the Chick-fil-A Bowl. The other three bowls will be on New Year's Day.
In 2016-17, the Chick-fil-A and Fiesta host the semifinal games on New Year's Eve.
Follow this formula in three-year intervals until 2026-27. In eight of those 12 years, a semifinal will be on New Year's Eve.
At least this make-up isn't that hard to follow, right? Basically all you need to know is that Rose and Sugar Bowls don't move from New Year's Eve, the Chick-fil-A (likely back to the Peach Bowl) and Orange don't move from New Year's Eve, and the Cotton bowl and Fiesta split time between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
Sure, the triple-header format may cut into your all-night revelry over the usually extended bar hours and general craziness that has become NYE these days, but come on… either grab a little hair of the dog that bit you or just make that not so difficult sacrifice of cutting back on the extra one or three pops around the holiday.
It'll be worth it to celebrate the fact that college football's most important games (the new playoffs and the biggest bowl games) will all be played in a two-day span. Not only that, but who amongst us that read and write on these topics won't be finding ways to make these games part of whatever it is we do to ring in another year flipping over on the calendar?
