2011 College Football Bowl Schedule Will Eliminate New Year's Day Play

2011-2012 College Football Bowl Schedule Released; No Games On New Year's Day

The Football Bowl Association, not a made-up organization although it does sound like one, has released the full slate of college football bowl games that will make up the culmination of the 2011 season. January 1 falls selfishly on a Sunday next year, and as anticipated earlier this spring, the vagaries of the upcoming (if currently theoretical) NFL season will necessitate the shuffling of all college football action off the New Year's Day schedule. (This does mean the TicketCity Bowl won't continue to ridiculously occupy the hallowed January 1 spot on the calendar, but it's now the same day as the Rose Bowl, which is just as upsetting). 

Some assorted highlights from the new schedule:

• In six months and a couple hours, the 2011 bowl season will kick off with the New Mexico Bowl at 2 p.m. EST. The Humanitarian and New Orleans Bowls round out the opening day triple-header. 
• The Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta Bowls are scheduled, respectively, for January 2, 3, 4, and 5, 2012. This year's title game rotates to New Orleans, on January 9.
• You'll be able to watch each game uninterrupted until the New Year's Eve barrage, when The CapitalOne, Outback, and Gator Bowl all kick off at 1 p.m.
• The Cotton and BBVA Compass Bowls are apparently still allowed to play after the BCS games but before the title game, a travesty that should be brought to the attention of the Justice Department with all haste.
• There is only one bowl on FOX. Football gods be praised. 
• The GoDaddy.com Bowl is still unscheduled. Here's an idea: If the BBVA Compass Bowl, which we are assured is a real thing, can plant itself in the middle of BCS week, why not put it the GoDaddy mid-January? The more bottom-feeding bowls we can latch onto this system, the closer we'll eventually edge to year-round college football.

NFL Lockout Forces BCS Bowl Schedule To Remain Flexible

While the NFL is reportedly preparing to play as few as eight games in its coming season, other sporting associations are also having to account for the ongoing NFL lockout in their scheduling. BCS executive director Bill Hancock says all five of the games in which his entity plays a role have been arranged with the lockout in mind.

The BCS National Championship Game and Sugar Bowl are the most likely to be affected, since both are held on Monday nights in Louisiana's Superdome, home of the New Orleans Saints. If the Saints' Week 16 Monday Night Football game against the Atlanta Falcons is pushed back by one week, the Sugar Bowl will have to be played on the following Tuesday. If it's pushed back by two weeks, college football's national title game will need to be played whenever it can be squeezed in.

Or the NFL could simply figure out how to divvy up eleventy billion dollars in time for the BCS to take the same amount from TV networks.

NFL To Bump New Year's Day Bowl Games

The 2011 NFL schedule was released this week. Notice anything? Reading to the end will reveal it should rightly be labeled the 2011-2012 schedule, with gameday of Week 17 falling on Sunday, January 1. College football fans, you will notice a severe conflict of schedule here, but fear not, we guess: All the New Year's Day bowl games will not be played on New Year's Day this year! Neato, huh?

The change happened without fanfare, but the Rose Bowl's website is already counting down to Monday, January 2, 2012. The Sugar and lesser games have all followed suit. And you, gentle reader, will not be reaping the benefit of a rare Sunday to recover from New Year's Eve festivities. Tradition-manacled columnists will scream (ever so genteelly) that, y'know, New Year's Day games just don't feel the same when played on January 2, and we can't wait to page through that circus, but all the misspent outrage to come doesn't change the fact that if you want to get your hands on the good stuff this postseason, you're gonna have to burn a sick day. Two if you're traveling. And we love the NFL, if not so much as our own beautiful game, but watching pro starters ride pine for the last three quarters all day on January 1* doesn't sound like the most appealing tradeoff. Give us our Pasadena, please. (Alert reader John reminds us that the Grandaddy has always skipped Sundays, but WHAT OF THE TICKETCITY BOWL, we ask you? What of the TicketCity Bowl?)

*New column idea! Rooting for the lockout to last throughout the season so this won't even be an issue! There you go, newspapermen aching to rail at something with your empty column inches. Little gift, us to you.

[HT: SB Nation Seattle.]