College Football Playoff New Year's Day Viewing Guide: Schedule, TV Info
Sports fans can celebrate the start of 2024 with a packed slate of New Year's Day games, highlighted by the two College Football Playoff semifinals.
Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama make up this year's four-team playoff field. The No. 1 Wolverines (13-0) will face off with the No. 4 Crimson Tide (12-1) in the Rose Bowl before the No. 2 Huskies (13-0) and the No. 3 Longhorns (12-1) meet in the Sugar Bowl. The winners will advance to the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.
Here's a guide to the playoff games that will kick off the new year.
CFP Channel, Game Times, How to Watch
One-loss Alabama controversially snuck into the playoff over Florida State, the undefeated ACC champs, after knocking off the two-time defending CFP-winning Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship game. Now the Crimson Tide will have to take down another top-ranked team to advance.
Alabama faces Michigan, the Big Ten champions whose last loss came in last season's playoff semifinals, in the first playoff game of the new year. The two schools will meet at 5 p.m. ET on New Year's Day at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
Right as that game wraps up, the second semifinal will take center stage. Texas is coming off a convincing victory in the Big 12 Championship Game, while Washington captured the Pac-12 title with another three-point win over Oregon, which was also a playoff hopeful. The Huskies and Longhorns are scheduled to kick off at 8:45 p.m. ET at the Superdome in New Orleans.
Both semifinal games will air on ESPN.
And for the college football fanatics in need of other viewing material before the CFP games arrive, three other bowl games are being played earlier on Monday.
The New Year's Day slate opens with Wisconsin vs. No. 13 LSU in the ReliaQuest Bowl (ESPN2) at noon ET, followed by No. 17 Iowa vs. No. 21 Tennessee in the Citrus Bowl (ABC) at 1 p.m. ET and No. 23 Liberty against No. 8 Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl (ESPN).
Who is Favored to Win the Playoff?
Fittingly, the top-seeded Wolverines have the best odds of winning the national title, according to DraftKings Sportsbook. Coach Jim Harbaugh's squad has +195 odds of winning the whole thing, followed by Alabama (+205), Texas (+260), and Washington (+700).
DraftKings lists Michigan as a 1.5-point favorite over Alabama on Monday, while Texas is favored by four points over Washington.
When is the National Championship Game?
The winners of Monday's semifinal games will come one step closer to hoisting the championship trophy. Alabama or Michigan and Washington or Texas will square off in the national championship game on Monday, January 8, at NRG Stadium in Houston. The game will kick off at 7:30 p.m. ET and air on ESPN. It will also be available to stream on the ESPN app.
History for Four Teams in CFP
This marks the 10th and final edition of the College Football Playoff in its current format.
Next year, the playoff expands to a 12-team bracket, with the six highest-ranked conference champions earning automatic bids and the top four overall teams receiving a first-round bye to the quarterfinals. But no team has had as much success in the first decade of the CFP than Alabama. This marks the eighth Crimson Tide appearance in the playoff since its inaugural season in 2014-15.
Head coach Nick Saban has won three of his seven national titles in the College Football Playoff era. No other team has won three championships in that span. In fact, none of the other three teams in this year's field have won a title under the playoff format, or even reached the championship game. Michigan is making its third straight playoff appearance, though it lost in the semifinals in the other two. Washington and Texas are making their CFP debuts.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
