Pairings for “New Year’s Six” bowls announced

By Kevin Kelley -

Earlier today, the College Football Playoff Selection Committee announced the semifinal pairings. Alabama will face Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl and Oregon will take on Florida State in the Rose Bowl.

Now the remainder of the “New Year’s Six” bowl games are set, which includes the Capital One Orange Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Vizio Fiesta Bowl, and AT&T Cotton Bowl.

Listed below are the matchups along with game information:

Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl
Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014 – 12:30pm ET, ESPN
Ole Miss vs. TCU

Vizio Fiesta Bowl
Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014 – 4pm ET, ESPN
Arizona vs. Boise State

Capital One Orange Bowl
Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014 – 8pm ET, ESPN
Georgia Tech vs. Mississippi State

Goodyear Cotton Bowl
Thursday, Jan. 1, 2015 – 12:30pm ET, ESPN
Baylor vs. Michigan State

Rose Bowl
Thursday, Jan. 1, 2015 – 5pm ET, ESPN
(2) Oregon vs. (3) Florida State

Sugar Bowl
Thursday, Jan. 1, 2015 – 8:30pm ET, ESPN
(1) Alabama vs. (4) Ohio State

Bowl Schedule

Comments (6)

I don’t think it’s fair that Florida State went two years undefeated plus a championship last year. They’re getting ripped off! It should be Florida State #1 vs Alabama #2 for the championship and that’s it! Not this Mickey Mouse stuff their dealing out! WAKE UP, you’re really putting FSU in a hole and they deserve a lot better. You ask the kids to play fair, now the poll board should play fair also.

Fair would be a 10-team playoff format, with all ten conferences each determining a single conference champion and sending their champion to the playoff. They would be seeded 1-10 by conference strength, and you need to come up with a formula to rank the conferences. The four weakest would play off in the first round. Round 2 would be 4 games, with the #1 seed playing the weakest seeded winner of the wildcard round, etc. The final 4 stays like it is now, and the rest of the bowl game system can stay in place for everyone else, since it really doesn’t have anything to do with the national championship now anyway.

I like the 4 team format. The college season need not be prolonged with two teams playing 2 or 3 games more to get a national champ. An increase in competitive play and conference recruitment would be beneficial when one of the “power 5” conferences can expect to be left out from year to year. Too many teams or games dilute the process if every team feel they are playoff worthy. Just allow 4 conference champs of the “power 5”, all other schools need to step-up their programs to be invited in “power 5” or at some point, a team be kicked out of a “power 5” conference to allow for an up and coming program to be allowed in during the periodic realignments that do occur after 5 to 10 years.

A true playoff would involve only conference champions…any CFP ranking should only determine seeding, and be issued only once, after the conference champions have been determined. In essence, teams should not worry about where they are week to week, leave that to the other polls. A team’s goal should be: win division, and then, win conference. PERIOD!