College football’s bowl calendar is taking form for the first year of the College Football Playoff. In addition to new games and new bowl tie-ins for conferences, some bowls are taking this time to establish new traditions as well. The Valero Alamo Bowl in San Antonio is pushing the date of its game back to after January 1, a bold decision for a bowl game that has traditionally been played between Christmas and New Years Day.
The Alamo Bowl will now be played on January 2, 2015 but will remain in primetime as it has in the past. The 2015 edition of the game will kick off at 6:45 p.m. eastern on ESPN in an exclusive time slot with no other bowls scheduled to overlap on the television schedule. The NFL will also be out of the picture with the bowl game being played on a Friday night.
“This year’s calendar provided us an excellent prime time Friday slot to showcase the Valero Alamo Bowl’s improved match-up featuring the top teams from the Big 12 and Pac-12 conferences after the College Football Playoff,” said Derrick Fox, Valero Alamo Bowl President/CEO, in a press release. “Our renewal rates are the highest in our history as fans are excited to welcome Top 25 teams to play in front of capacity crowds at the Alamodome.”
The new date and time slot for the Alamo Bowl is a result of the game being moved up in the pecking order of the bowl line-up as well. The Alamo Bowl is now regarded as the top bowl game not affiliated with the College Football Playoff bowl rotation. The game has done well historically with selling tickets and providing quality match-ups, so this comes as no surprise. Now, given an upgrade in scheduling, the Alamo Bowl may continue to grow as a filler bowl between the semifinal games and the championship game in the College Football Playoff.
The Alamo Bowl has conference ties with the Big 12 and Pac-12. Last season’s game featured Oregon and Texas, with the Ducks spoiling the final game coached by former Longhorns head coach Mack Brown.