2023–24 NCAA football bowl games

The 2023–24 NCAA football bowl games were a series of college football bowl games in the United States, primarily played to complete the 2023 NCAA Division I FBS football season. Team-competitive bowl games in FBS began on December 16 and concluded with the 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship on January 8, 2024, which was won by the Michigan Wolverines. The all-star portion began on January 13 and concluded on February 24.

The schedule for the 2023–24 bowl games, announced in May 2023, is below. All times listed using EST (UTC−5).

Cotton

Peach

Orange

Fiesta

Rose

Sugar

National Championship

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Locations of 2023–24 CFP bowls
– National Championship, – Semifinal Bowl, – Non-semifinal bowl

The College Football Playoff system is used to determine a national championship of Division I FBS college football. A committee of experts ranked the top 25 teams in the nation after each of the last seven weeks of the regular season. The top four teams^[c] in the final ranking are then seeded in a single-elimination semifinal round, with the winners advanced to the National Championship game. This playoff was the last to use a four-team bracket, with the College Football Playoff set to expand to 12 teams in 2024.^[2]

The semifinal games for the 2023 season were the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl. Both were played on January 1, 2024, as part of a yearly rotation of three pairs of two bowls, commonly referred to as the New Year's Six bowl games. The winners advanced to the 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship that was contested on January 8, 2024, at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.

On December 3, 2023, the College Football Playoff committee announced that it had selected Michigan, Washington, Texas, and Alabama to participate in the 2023–24 College Football Playoff. The committee's decision to select the Southeastern Conference's (SEC) Alabama (12–1) instead of the Atlantic Coast Conference's (ACC) Florida State (13–0), who became the first undefeated Power Five conference team to not qualify for the playoff, received intense criticism from fans, writers, and commentators. Specifically, several of these viewers accused the committee of corruption, bias, and favoritism towards the SEC.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]} The CFP committee chair and others defended the selection of Alabama, which defeated five ranked teams (compared to Florida State's three) during the season, including No. 1 ranked Georgia in the last game of the SEC season, saying that Alabama was currently the better team overall.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Each of the games in the following table was televised by ESPN.

† Semifinal teams were chosen by the selection committee.

‡ Semifinal winners advanced to the championship game.

Several bowl name changes were made, as compared to the prior season's bowl games:

• Due to construction at its normal stadium, the Bahamas Bowl was temporarily relocated to North Carolina and branded as the Famous Toastery Bowl per its title sponsor.^[15]
• Due to a change in title sponsor, the LendingTree Bowl was renamed as the 68 Ventures Bowl.^[16]
• Sponsor Kellogg's (renamed Kellanova in October 2023, after the company's North American cereal business was spun off as the WK Kellogg Co^[17][18]) renamed the Cheez-It Bowl as the Pop-Tarts Bowl.^[19]

Rankings are per the final CFP rankings that were released on December 3.

Celebration

Crossroads

Live United

Heritage

Florida Beach

Isthmus

Lakefront

New England

Bushnell

Chapman

Whitelaw

Lynah

CC-MAC

Cape Henry

Cape Charles

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Locations of 2023 Non-DI FBS bowls.
– DI FCS, – DII, – DIII

The Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) has one bowl game, played between HBCUs, which acts as a de facto Black college football national championship. The FCS also has a postseason bracket tournament that culminates in the 2024 NCAA Division I Football Championship Game.

Each of these games featured college seniors, or players whose college football eligibility was ending, who were individually invited by game organizers. These games were scheduled to follow the team-competitive bowls, to allow players selected from bowl teams to participate. Such all-star games may include some players from non-FBS programs.

The NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, which debuted in 2012 and was played 12 times through January 2023, was discontinued. The East–West Shrine Bowl relocated from Nevada (where its prior two editions had been played) to Texas.

The College Football Playoff (CFP) selection committee announced its final team rankings for the season on December 3, 2023. It was the 10th season of the CFP era, and the last one with a four-team playoff. This was the first time that an undefeated Power Five conference champion (Florida State) was left out of the semifinals.^[26]

Generally, a team must have at least six wins to be considered bowl eligible, with at least five of those wins being against FBS opponents. The College Football Playoff semifinal games are determined based on the top four seeds in the playoff committee's final rankings. The remainder of the bowl-eligible teams are selected by each respective bowl based on conference tie-ins, order of selection, matchup considerations, and other factors.

• ACC (11): Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami (FL), NC State, North Carolina, Syracuse, Virginia Tech
• American (6): Memphis, Rice, SMU, South Florida, Tulane, UTSA
• Big Ten (9): Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota,^[e] Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Wisconsin
• Big 12 (9): Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech, UCF, West Virginia
• C–USA (4): Jacksonville State,^[f] Liberty, New Mexico State, Western Kentucky
• MAC (6): Bowling Green, Eastern Michigan, Miami (OH), Northern Illinois, Ohio, Toledo
• Mountain West (7): Air Force, Boise State, Fresno State, San Jose State, UNLV, Utah State, Wyoming
• Pac-12 (8): Arizona, California, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington
• SEC (9): Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Missouri, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas A&M
• Sun Belt (12): Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, James Madison,^[f] Louisiana, Marshall, Old Dominion, South Alabama, Texas State, Troy
• Independent (1): Notre Dame

Number of bowl berths available: 82
Number of bowl-eligible teams: 79
Number of conditionally bowl-eligible teams: 2: (Jacksonville State and James Madison)^[f]
Number of teams qualified by APR: 1 (Minnesota)^[27]

• ACC (3): Pittsburgh, Virginia, Wake Forest
• American (8): Charlotte, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Navy, North Texas, Temple, Tulsa, UAB
• Big Ten (5): Illinois, Indiana, Michigan State, Nebraska, Purdue
• Big 12 (5): Baylor, BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, TCU
• C–USA (5): FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, Sam Houston,^[g] UTEP
• MAC (6): Akron, Ball State, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Kent State, Western Michigan
• Mountain West (5): Colorado State, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, San Diego State
• Pac-12 (4): Arizona State,^[h] Colorado, Stanford, Washington State
• SEC (5): Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Vanderbilt
• Sun Belt (2): Louisiana–Monroe, Southern Miss
• Independent (3): Army,^[i] UConn, UMass

Number of bowl-ineligible teams: 51

† Boise State, UNLV, and San José State all finished with a 6–2 conference record, creating a three-way tie. Since all three teams did not face each other during the season, and none of the teams were in the College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings before the conference championship game, the three-way tie was broken by a composite average of computer rankings from Anderson & Hester, Colley Matrix, Massey and Wolfe. UNLV finished with the best average rankings at 44.5, while Boise State came in second at 55.75 and San José State third at 58.5. Therefore, the Broncos and Rebels secured their spots in the MW Championship. UNLV and Boise State did not play each other during the regular season. The Rebels' superior average computer ranking earned them the right to host the title game.^[29]

Ranks are per the final CFP rankings, released on December 3, 2023, with win–loss records at that time.

^CFP College Football Playoff participant

Source:^[30]

Note: The only independent team that played in an FBS bowl game was Notre Dame.