Cotton Bowl date moved up to Dec. 29

One of the major bowls in college football will now begin earlier.

The Cotton Bowl has been one of the biggest bowl games in college football for decades. Starting in 1937, the Cotton Bowl quickly became known as one of the potential sites that could decide a national title and eventually became one of the “New Year’s Six” games. It continued to be played on New Year’s Day throughout the BCS era and into the Playoff era with the only change coming on years the game fell on Sunday, or the single time they hosted the playoff.

This year the Cotton Bowl will again not be in the rotation for the playoff, and as a result, the date of the game has been moved altogether. Instead of playing on New Year’s Eve or competing against the playoff on New Year’s Day, the Cotton Bowl will be the first major bowl of the postseason, played on Dec. 29.

This is a pretty surprising move in a sport where tradition seems to reign over all decisions. The Cotton Bowl has been a New Year’s Day event for the entirety of the game’s existence, only being played in the month of December twice. However, looking at recent scheduling history this might make more sense than it initially appears. While the game was originally always played on New Year’s Day, or the day after, starting in 2011 kickoff was moved to almost an entire week later. Perhaps the Cotton Bowl enjoys being in a slot where they have the majority of the college football world focused on them alone.

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It will be interesting to see if this decision pays off positively for the Cotton Bowl. By going first they’re essentially kicking off the meat of the college football postseason. They get all the hype of being the sport’s first big game, but if the game itself flops then they could be in for a rough night on ratings without anything else to keep fans watching.

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