The Rose Bowl will remain a College Football Playoff quarterfinal for the next two seasons — and likely the four after that — holding down its traditional spot as the afternoon anchor of the New Year’s Day lineup.
The CFP announced on Tuesday the sites and dates for the quarter- and semifinals of the next two postseason tournaments to decide major college football’s national champion.
The quarterfinals for the 2026 season’s Playoff will begin on Wednesday, Dec. 30 at the Fiesta Bowl, with a tripleheader on Jan. 1 at the Cotton Bowl, Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl. Kickoff times for each game will be set at a later date, but the Rose Bowl is expected to remain the second of three games with a mid-afternoon Eastern Time kick.
The Orange Bowl will pick up an extra semifinal next season with the Rose Bowl out of that rotation. That game is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 14. The Sugar Bowl will be the site of the other semifinal, scheduled for Friday, Jan. 15.
The national championship game is set to be held in Las Vegas on Jan 25.
The Playoff field will remain 12 teams in 2026 after the Big Ten and SEC failed to reach consensus on an expansion plan. That could change for the 2027 season and beyond, but the quarterfinals and semifinals will remain locked into bowl sites for the length of the new six-year agreement with ESPN that kicks in this year.
Games played before the quarterfinals will be held at home sites. Some coaches and administrators have urged CFP leaders to extend the popular on-campus games to the quarterfinals, but that’s essentially off the board for the next six years of the CFP.
After the 2027 season, the quarterfinals are scheduled to begin Friday, Dec. 31 in the Sugar Bowl and continue on New Year’s Day with games at the Fiesta, Rose and Peach. The semifinals are slated for Thursday, Jan. 13, 2028, at the Orange Bowl and Friday, Jan. 14, 2028, at the Cotton Bowl. New Orleans is set to host the national title game on Monday, Jan. 24, 2028.
The Rose Bowl lobbied to keep its traditional date and time slot while remaining part of the six-bowl group that hosts the quarters and semifinals, and the CFP agreed to make the accommodation. Tuesday’s announcement covers only the first two seasons of the new six-year deal as the CFP finalizes agreements with ESPN and its bowl partners, but the Rose Bowl is expected to remain a New Year’s Day quarterfinal for the duration of the contracts.
College football’s oldest bowl game, dubbed The Granddaddy of Them All, the Rose Bowl first matched a team from the West Coast against a team from the Midwest in 1917. It has been staged almost exclusively in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 1 (Jan. 2 if New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday) throughout its history, in conjunction with the Tournament of Roses Parade earlier in the day.
It has moved off its traditional date a couple of times during the Bowl Championship Series era to host national title games. The famous USC-Texas Rose Bowl to decide the 2005 national championship was played on Jan. 4.
But the Rose Bowl has fought hard to preserve its traditional position on the sports calendar, in the afternoon of Jan. 1, allowing for sunset views of the San Gabriel Mountains during the second half of the telecast. Last year, the Rose Bowl did move up its kickoff one hour to about 4 p.m. ET to allow for a larger television window that would not run into the nightcap of the quarterfinal tripleheader.