ESPN releases college football bowl schedule for 2026: Changes, highlights and game times

Two of the most popular non-College Football Playoff bowls will air on the same night and the Citrus and ReliaQuest bowls will kick off on separate dates for just the third time in nearly four decades, according to dates and kickoff times released by ESPN on Wednesday.

The 32-game bowl lineup on ESPN consists of all of its postseason games outside of the six bowls comprising the CFP.

On Tuesday, Dec. 29, ESPN will air the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando at 5:30 p.m. ET and conclude with the Alamo Bowl at 9 p.m. Last year, the Pop-Tarts Bowl featuring BYU and Georgia Tech was the second-highest rated non-CFP bowl with 8.7 million viewers. The Alamo Bowl between USC and TCU boasted 4.9 million viewers to rank sixth. The games feature the top two Big 12 teams outside of the CFP, with the No. 1 ACC squad outside the CFP heading to Orlando. The Alamo has the Big 12’s top non-CFP choice and a team from the Pac-12 legacy alignment, which consists of teams that competed in the Pac-12 through 2023.

The Citrus (Orlando) and ReliaQuest (Tampa) bowls usually overlap on the same day and regularly feature the Big Ten’s top two teams outside the CFP against two SEC teams. Both conferences’ No. 1 non-CFP team heads to the Citrus. This year, the Citrus will kick off an ABC tripleheader on Jan. 2, while the ReliaQuest leads off a trio of New Year’s Eve games on ESPN that also includes the Las Vegas and Texas bowls. Also on Dec. 31, CBS will broadcast the Sun Bowl, which it has done annually since 1968.

A few other highlights:

• On Dec 30, ESPN combined the Gator Bowl (11:30 a.m. ET) and Music City Bowl (3 p.m. ET) to lead into the Fiesta Bowl (7:30 p.m. ET), which airs on TNT. The Fiesta is a CFP quarterfinal this year.

• ESPN will air two games on Christmas Eve, starting with the New Mexico Bowl (2:30 p.m. ET) and following with the traditional Hawaii Bowl (7 p.m. ET).Non-CFP bowl season concludes on Jan. 2 with the First Responder (3:30 p.m. ET) and Liberty (7:30 p.m. ET) bowls following the Citrus.

• ESPN’s bowls last year averaged 3.1 million viewers, which was up 13 percent year-over-year. The Citrus Bowl between Michigan and Texas was the highest-rated non-CFP bowl with 9.1 million viewers.

• The inaugural Puerto Rico Bowl kicks off at 1:30 p.m. ET on Dec. 22 from Juan Ramón Loubriel Stadium in Bayamón, Puerto Rico.

• The Rate Bowl has renamed itself the Cactus Bowl, of which it was known from 2015 to 2017. This year, the game has returned to Arizona State’s Mountain America Stadium after a decade at Chase Field, where the Arizona Diamondbacks play.

• Three bowls don’t have dates or kickoff times: Arizona (Tucson), Holiday (San Diego, Calif.) and Poinsettia (San Diego, Calif.). The CW will televise the Arizona Bowl while the San Diego-based games have not announced a network affiliation.