| Season: | 2016 |
| Regular Season: | – |
| Number Of Bowls: | 42 |
| All Star Games: | 4 |
| Championship Bowl: | 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship |
| Championship Location: | Raymond James Stadium Tampa, Florida |
| Champions: | Clemson Tigers |
| Bowl Challenge Cup: | ACC |
| Conference1: | SEC |
| Conference1 Teams: | 13 |
| Conference1 Wins: | 6 |
| Conference1 Losses: | 7 |
| Conference1 Ap Poll: | 5 |
| Conference2: | ACC |
| Conference2 Teams: | 12 |
| Conference2 Wins: | 9 |
| Conference2 Losses: | 3 |
| Conference2 Ap Poll: | 5 |
| Conference3: | Big Ten |
| Conference3 Teams: | 10 |
| Conference3 Wins: | 3 |
| Conference3 Losses: | 7 |
| Conference3 Ap Poll: | 4 |
| Conference4: | American |
| Conference4 Teams: | 7 |
| Conference4 Wins: | 2 |
| Conference4 Losses: | 5 |
| Conference4 Ap Poll: | 1 |
| Conference5: | Conference USA |
| Conference5 Teams: | 7 |
| Conference5 Wins: | 4 |
| Conference5 Losses: | 3 |
| Conference5 Ap Poll: | 0 |
| Conference6: | Mountain West |
| Conference6 Teams: | 7 |
| Conference6 Wins: | 4 |
| Conference6 Losses: | 3 |
| Conference6 Ap Poll: | 1 |
| Conference7: | Big 12 |
| Conference7 Teams: | 6 |
| Conference7 Wins: | 4 |
| Conference7 Losses: | 2 |
| Conference7 Ap Poll: | 3 |
| Conference8: | MAC |
| Conference8 Teams: | 6 |
| Conference8 Wins: | 0 |
| Conference8 Losses: | 6 |
| Conference8 Ap Poll: | 1 |
| Conference9: | Pac-12 |
| Conference9 Teams: | 6 |
| Conference9 Wins: | 3 |
| Conference9 Losses: | 3 |
| Conference9 Ap Poll: | 5 |
| Conference10: | Sun Belt |
| Conference10 Teams: | 6 |
| Conference10 Wins: | 4 |
| Conference10 Losses: | 2 |
| Conference10 Ap Poll: | 0 |
| Conference11: | Independents |
| Conference11 Teams: | 2 |
| Conference11 Wins: | 2 |
| Conference11 Losses: | 0 |
| Conference11 Ap Poll: | 0 |
The 2016–17 NCAA football bowl games were a series of college football bowl games which completed the 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The games began on December 17, 2016, and aside from the all-star games ended with the 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship which was played on January 9, 2017.
The total of 41 team-competitive postseason games in FBS, including the national championship game, was unchanged from the previous year. While bowl games had been the purview of only the very best teams for nearly a century, this was the eleventh consecutive year that teams with non-winning seasons participated in bowl games. To fill the 80 available team-competitive bowl slots, a new record of 20 teams (25% of all participants) with non-winning seasons participated in bowl games - 17 had a .500 (6–6) season, and three losing teams with sub-.500 records (one 6–7 and two 5–7). This was the fifth time in six years that teams with actual losing records were invited to bowl games. None of the six teams that played in bowls on December 26 had a winning record.
The schedule for the 2016–17 bowl games are below. All times are EST (UTC−5).
The College Football Playoff system was used to determine a national champion of Division I FBS college football. A 13-member committee of experts ranked the top 25 teams in the nation after each of the last seven weeks of the 2016 season. The top four teams in the final ranking then played a single-elimination semifinal round, with the winners advancing to the National Championship game.
The semi-final games were held at the Peach Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl as part of a yearly rotation of three pairs of six bowls. Their winners advanced to the 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, on January 9, 2017. As with the 2015 season, the two semi-final bowls were held on New Year's Eve (Saturday, December 31, 2016), as the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl are guaranteed exclusive TV time slots on January 2 if New Year's Day fell on a Sunday (there is a gentleman's agreement to not play New Year's Day bowl games against NFL games, which are played as usual when New Year's Day falls on a Sunday),[1] regardless of whether they will be hosting a semifinal game.[2] [3]
To reduce the impact of the semi-final games' New Year's Eve scheduling—a factor that led to lower viewership of the 2015 semi-finals in comparison to 2014, it was announced on March 8, 2016, that the kickoff times of the two bowls would be pushed forward to 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm ET. CFP commissioner Bill Hancock suggested that starting the games earlier would allow viewers to partake in both the CFP games and New Year's festivities. As the earlier start intrudes on the early afternoon window for New Year's Six games, the 2016 Orange Bowl was instead held as a primetime game on December 30, 2016. As a result, the "New Year's Six" bowls were stretched across a period of four days, rather than two consecutive days of three games each.[4] [5] In July 2016, Hancock announced that future semi-finals, when not hosted by the Rose and Sugar Bowl games, will generally be held on the final Saturday of the year.[6] [7]
Of the Power Five conferences, The Big Ten was represented with four teams in the New Year's Six, whereas the ACC, SEC and Pac-12 had two teams each. The Big 12 was again left out of the semifinals, and had just one team in the New Year's Six. The Group of 5 was represented by the MAC.
| Date | Game | Site | Teams | Affiliations | Results | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| style=white-space:nowrap | Dec. 30 | Orange Bowl | Hard Rock Stadium Miami Gardens, FL 8:00 pm | No. 11 Florida State Seminoles (9–3) No. 6 Michigan Wolverines (10–2) | style=white-space:nowrap | Florida State 33 Michigan 32 | |
| Dec. 31 | Peach Bowl (Playoff Semifinal Game) | Georgia Dome Atlanta, GA 3:00 pm | No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide (13–0) No. 4 Washington Huskies (12–1) | SEC Pac-12 | style=white-space:nowrap | Alabama 24 Washington 7 | |
| Fiesta Bowl (Playoff Semifinal Game) | University of Phoenix Stadium Glendale, AZ 7:00 pm | No. 2 Clemson Tigers (12–1) No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes (11–1) | ACC Big Ten | style=white-space:nowrap | Clemson 31 Ohio State 0 | ||
| Jan. 2 | Cotton Bowl Classic | AT&T Stadium Arlington, TX 1:00 pm | No. 8 Wisconsin Badgers (10–3) No. 15 Western Michigan Broncos (13–0) | Big Ten MAC | style=white-space:nowrap | Wisconsin 24 Western Michigan 16 | |
| Rose Bowl | Rose Bowl Pasadena, CA 5:00 pm | No. 9 USC Trojans (9–3) No. 5 Penn State Nittany Lions (11–2) | Pac-12 Big Ten | style=white-space:nowrap | USC 52 Penn State 49 | ||
| Sugar Bowl | Mercedes-Benz Superdome New Orleans, LA 8:30 pm | No. 7 Oklahoma Sooners (10–2) No. 14 Auburn Tigers (8–4) | Big 12 SEC | style=white-space:nowrap | Oklahoma 35 Auburn 19 | ||
| Jan. 9 | College Football Playoff National Championship (Peach Bowl Winner vs. Fiesta Bowl Winner) | Raymond James Stadium Tampa, FL 8:30 pm | No. 2 Clemson Tigers (13–1) No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide (14–0) | ACC SEC | Clemson 35 Alabama 31 |
On April 11, 2016, the NCAA announced a freeze on new bowl games until after the 2019 season. While bowl games had been the purview of only the very best teams for nearly a century, the NCAA had to lower its postseason eligibility criteria repeatedly (2006, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013), eventually allowing teams with losing records (5–7) to participate in bowls due to there being not enough bowl-eligible teams, while also having to allow teams from the same (Mountain West) conference to meet in the 2015 Arizona Bowl due to the lack of eligible teams to meet its other tie-ins.[8] [9] [10] For the 2016–17 bowl season, 63% of the 128 teams playing in Division I FBS were deemed eligible and received invites to fill the 80 available slots.
Prior to the moratorium, multiple new bowl games were proposed for or approved to begin play in 2016, including one in Myrtle Beach, the Medal of Honor Bowl (which planned to convert itself from an all-star game to a sanctioned bowl after the NCAA lifted its ban on postseason championships at pre-determined locations in South Carolina),[11] the Sun Belt/American Austin Bowl,[10] [12] and a Mountain West/Pac-12 bowl in Melbourne, Australia.[13] [14] [15] The Sun Belt subsequently announced that it would become a new primary tie-in for the Arizona Bowl.[16]
| Date | Game | Site | Television | Participants | Results | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 15 | Tropical Bowl | Daytona Stadium Daytona Beach, Florida | PPV | National Team American Team | National 28 American 14 | ||
| Jan. 21 | East–West Shrine Game | Tropicana Field St. Petersburg, FL 3:00 pm | NFL Network | East Team West Team | West 10 East 3 | ||
| NFLPA Collegiate Bowl | StubHub Center Carson, CA 6:00 pm | FS1 | National Team American Team | National 27 American 7 | |||
| style=white–space:nowrap | Jan. 28 | Senior Bowl | Ladd–Peebles Stadium Mobile, AL 2:30 pm | NFL Network | North Team South Team | South 16 North 15 |
The FCS has one bowl game; they also have a championship bracket that began on November 26 and ended on January 7.
On December 4, 2016, the College Football Playoff selection committee announced their final team rankings for the year:[17]
In the third year of the College Football Playoff era, this was the first time that one of the four semifinalists (Ohio State) was not a conference champion.
| Rank | Team | W–L | Conference and standing | Bowl game | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEC champions | Peach Bowl (CFP semifinal) | ||||
| ACC champions | Fiesta Bowl (CFP semifinal) | ||||
| Big Ten East Division co-champions | Fiesta Bowl (CFP semifinal) | ||||
| Pac-12 champions | Peach Bowl (CFP semifinal) | ||||
| Big Ten champions | Rose Bowl (NY6) | ||||
| Big Ten East Division third place | Orange Bowl (NY6) | ||||
| Big 12 champions | Sugar Bowl (NY6) | ||||
| Big Ten West Division champions | Cotton Bowl Classic (NY6) | ||||
| Pac-12 South Division second place | Rose Bowl (NY6) | ||||
| Pac-12 South Division champions | Alamo Bowl | ||||
| ACC Atlantic Division third place | Orange Bowl (NY6) | ||||
| Big 12 second place (tie) | Alamo Bowl | ||||
| ACC Atlantic Division co-champions | Citrus Bowl | ||||
| SEC West Division second place (tie) | Sugar Bowl (NY6) | ||||
| MAC Champions | Cotton Bowl Classic (NY6) | ||||
| Big 12 second place (tie) | Russell Athletic Bowl | ||||
| SEC East Division champions | Outback Bowl | ||||
| Pac-12 North Division third place | Sun Bowl | ||||
| Pac-12 South Division third place | Foster Farms Bowl | ||||
| SEC West Division second place (tie) | Citrus Bowl | ||||
| SEC East Division second place (tie) | Music City Bowl | ||||
| ACC Coastal Division champions | Belk Bowl | ||||
| ACC Coastal Division second place (tie) | Pinstripe Bowl | ||||
| American champions | Military Bowl | ||||
| American West Division champions | Armed Forces Bowl |
Only the Peach Bowl featured two conference champions playing against each other. Rankings are per the above CFP standings.
| Conference | Champion | W–L | Rank | Bowl game |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiesta Bowl | ||||
| 24 | Military Bowl | |||
| Rose Bowl | ||||
| Sugar Bowl | ||||
| — | Boca Raton Bowl | |||
| 15 | Cotton Bowl Classic | |||
| — | Las Vegas Bowl | |||
| Peach Bowl | ||||
| Peach Bowl | ||||
| — | Camellia Bowl | |||
| — | Cure Bowl |
Number of bowl berths available: 80
Number of bowl-eligible teams: 76
Number of conditional bowl-eligible teams: 2 (Hawaii, South Alabama)
Number of teams qualified by APR: 2 (North Texas, Mississippi State)
Number of bowl-ineligible teams: 48
Note: Being bowl-ineligible does not, in itself, exclude a team from the chance to play in a bowl game. Tiebreaker procedures based on a school's Academic Progress Rate (APR) allowed for the possibility of 5–7 teams to play in bowl games since not enough teams qualified to fill all 80 spots with at least a 6–6 record.