College Football Bowl and Playoff Schedule for This Season

College football has been wildly upended over the last few years by conference realignment, NIL and players transfers. Despite the changes, one of its oldest traditions endures: bowl games. These end-of-year games date back to 1902 when Michigan beat Stanford 49-0 in the Rose Bowl, which was originally dubbed “Tournament East-West football game.”

The college football bowl game schedule looks a bit different this year as the College Football Playoff has expanded from four teams to 12 teams. The expanded playoff was supposed to remove much of the consternation over which teams made the cut, but grumbling from Miami, Ole Miss and others shows that is not the case. More teams didn’t diminish the regular season intrigue as predicted by some, with weekly upsets upending projections on the final 12, home field advantage and securing a bye.

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Per usual, TV money is driving the train in the changes. ESPN owned the rights to the CFP in a deal that runs through the 2025-26 season worth $470 million a year. In March, ESPN reached a new six-year, $7.8 billion agreement that runs through 2031-32 to be the rightsholder of the playoffs. “This agreement further solidifies ESPN as the home of college football,” Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN chairman, said in a statement when the deal as announced.

Two months later, ESPN reached a five-year deal to sublicense some playoff games to TNT, who will host a pair of first-round CFP games during the next two seasons, whereupon the cable channel will add two quarterfinals in each of the three subsequent years.

Under the new CFP arrangement, Big Ten and SEC schools are set to each receive roughly $21 million annually, while ACC programs get approximately $13 million and Big 12 members $12 million. Notre Dame, which is independent, is expected to receive about $12 million as well. Group of Five schools will split 9% of the earnings, which works out to slightly less than $2 million per institution.

Here is what you need to know about the bowl game and playoff schedule for the 2024-25 college football season.

How many bowl games are there?

There are 36 games outside of the College Football Playoff, plus the 11 playoff games that will determine the national champion. The six traditional New Year’s Day bowl games, including the Rose, Orange and Fiesta, will be the quarterfinal and semifinal games of the playoff.

The bowl schedule kicks off with the Cricket Celebration Bowl on Dec. 14 and wraps up with the National Championship game on Jan. 20, nearly two weeks after last year’s title game. Big-name brands Allstate, AT&T, Capital One and Goodyear are sponsoring games once again, as are a few less-known names, such as Scooter’s Coffee, StaffDNA, SRS Distribution and 68 Ventures. Even Snoop Dogg has his own bowl game this year with the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl.

When are bowl games announced?

Most of the matchups will be revealed on Sunday, Dec. 8 over the course of the day on ESPN. The conference title games on Saturday will set the pecking order for the games and playoff. Disney’s ESPN and ABC networks will be the home to almost all of the bowl games, while Fox, CBS and The CW will each broadcast a single game. In May, TNT reached a five-year deal to sublicense some playoff games from ESPN. TNT will host a pair of first-round CFP games this year.

Who is on the CFP Selection Committee?

The committee is made up of 13 members whose job is to rank the top 25 teams, assign the top 12 to the playoff bracket and assign the bowl sites. Per the CFP guidelines, the rankings are based on “members’ evaluation of the teams’ performance on the field, using conference championships won, strength of schedule, head-to-head results, and comparison of results against common opponents.” The playoff format for this season will feature five automatic qualifiers from the five highest-ranked conference champions and seven at-large bids.

Below is the complete 2024-25 bowl game schedule with TV listings.

College Football Playoff Game Schedule

CFP first-round game

• Friday, Dec. 20, 8 p.m. ET. Watch on ABC/ESPN

CFP first-round game

• Saturday, Dec. 21, 12 p.m. ET. Watch on TNT

CFP first-round game

• Saturday, Dec. 21, 4 p.m. ET. Watch on TNT

CFP first-round game

• Saturday, Dec. 21, 8 p.m. ET. Watch on ABC/ESPN

Vrbo Fiesta Bowl – CFP Quarterfinal

• Tuesday, Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl –  CFP Quarterfinal

• Wednesday, Jan. 1, 1 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Rose Bowl Presented by Prudential – CFP Quarterfinal

• Wednesday, Jan. 1, 5 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Allstate Sugar Bowl – CFP Quarterfinal

• Wednesday, Jan. 1, 8:45 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Capital One Orange Bowl – CFP Semifinal

• Thursday, Jan. 9, 7:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic – CFP Semifinal

• Friday, Jan. 10, 7:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

CFP National Championship Presented by AT&T

• Monday, Jan. 20, 7:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Other Bowl Games

Cricket Celebration Bowl

• Saturday, Dec. 14, 12 p.m. ET. Watch on ABC

IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl

• South Alabama vs. Western Michigan, Saturday, Dec. 14, 9 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl

• Memphis vs. West Virginia, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 9 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Boca Raton Bowl

• Wednesday, Dec. 18, 5:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

LA Bowl

• Wednesday, Dec. 18, 9 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl

• Thursday, Dec. 19, 7 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN2

StaffDNA Cure Bowl

• Friday, Dec. 20, 12 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl

• Friday, Dec. 20, 3:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Myrtle Beach Bowl

• Monday, Dec. 23, 11 a.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

• Monday, Dec. 23, 2:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Hawai’i Bowl

• South Florida vs. San Jose State, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 8 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

GameAbove Sports Bowl

• Thursday, Dec. 26, 2 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Rate Bowl

• Thursday, Dec. 26, 5:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

68 Ventures Bowl

• Thursday, Dec. 26, 9 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Birmingham Bowl

• Friday, Dec. 27, 12 or 3:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl

• Friday, Dec. 27, 12 or 3:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

AutoZone Liberty Bowl

• Friday, Dec. 27, 7 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

DirecTV Holiday Bowl

• Friday, Dec. 27, 8 p.m. ET. Watch on Fox

SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl

• Friday, Dec. 27, 10:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Wasabi Fenway Bowl

• Saturday, Dec. 28, 11 a.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl

• Saturday, Dec. 28, 12 p.m. ET. Watch on ABC

Isleta New Mexico Bowl

• Saturday, Dec. 28, 2:15 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Pop-Tarts Bowl

• Saturday, Dec. 28, 3:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ABC

Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl

• Saturday, Dec. 28, 4:30 p.m. ET. Watch on CW Network

Go Bowling Military Bowl

• Saturday, Dec. 28, 5:45 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Valero Alamo Bowl

• Saturday, Dec. 28, 7:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ABC

Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl

• Saturday, Dec. 28, 9:15 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

TransPerfect Music City Bowl

• Monday, Dec. 30, 2:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

ReliaQuest Bowl

• Tuesday, Dec. 31, 12 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl

• Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2 p.m. ET. Watch on CBS

Cheez-It Citrus Bowl

• Tuesday, Dec. 31, 3 p.m. ET. Watch on ABC

Texas Bowl

• Tuesday, Dec. 31, 3:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

TaxSlayer Gator Bowl

• Thursday, Jan. 2, 7:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

SERVPRO First Responder Bowl

• Friday, Jan. 3, 4 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Duke’s Mayo Bowl

• Friday, Jan. 3, 7:30 p.m. ET. Watch on ESPN

Bahamas Bowl

• Buffalo vs. Liberty, Friday, Jan. 4, 11 a.m. ET. Watch on ESPN2

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