2015–16 NCAA football bowl games
| 2015–16 NCAA football bowl games | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Season | 2015 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Regular season | September 3, 2015 – December 12, 2015 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Number of bowls | 41 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All-star games | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowl games | December 19, 2015 – January 11, 2016 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National Championship | 2016 College Football Playoff National Championship |
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| Location of Championship |
University of Phoenix Stadium Glendale, AZ |
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| Champions | Alabama Crimson Tide | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowl Challenge Cup winner | SEC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Bowl Record by Conference | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Conference | Bowls | Record | Final AP Poll |
| SEC | 11 | 9–2 (0.818) | 5 |
| Pac-12 | 10 | 6–4 (0.600) | 3 |
| Big Ten | 10 | 5–5 (0.500) | 6 |
| ACC | 10 | 4–6 (0.400) | 3 |
| Mountain West | 8 | 4–4 (0.500) | 0 |
| American | 8 | 2–6 (0.250) | 2 |
| Big 12 | 7 | 3–4 (0.429) | 4 |
| MAC | 7 | 3–4 (0.429) | 0 |
| Conference USA | 5 | 3–2 (0.600) | 1 |
| Sun Belt | 4 | 2–2 (0.500) | 0 |
| Independents | 2 | 0–2 (0.000) | 1 |
The 2015–16 NCAA football bowl games were a series of college football bowl games. They completed the 2015 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The games began on December 19, 2015 and, aside from the all-star games, ended with the 2016 College Football Playoff National Championship which was played on January 11, 2016.
A record 41 postseason games were played, including the national championship game. To fill the 80 available bowl slots, a record 15 teams with non-winning seasons participated in bowl games—12 had a .500 (6-6) season, and three sub-.500 (all with a record low 5-7) teams were required. This situation led directly to the NCAA Division I Council imposing a three-year moratorium on new bowl games in April 2016.
The schedule for the 2015–16 bowl games is below. All times are EST (UTC−5). The rankings used were the CFP rankings.
The 2015–16 postseason was the second to feature a College Football Playoff (CFP) to determine a national champion of Division I FBS college football. Four teams were selected by a 12-member committee to participate in a single-elimination tournament, whose semifinals were held at the Cotton Bowl and the Orange Bowl as part of a yearly rotation of six bowls. Their winners advanced to the 2016 College Football Playoff National Championship at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on January 11, 2016.
Both semifinal bowls were held on December 31, 2015. Under the TV contracts with ESPN that predate the CFP, both the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl (the first two bowls in the three cycling pairs that host semi-final games) are guaranteed exclusive TV time slots on January 1, regardless of whether they will be hosting a semifinal game. Analysts expressed concerns that the semifinal games could face reduced television viewership due to the New Year's Eve scheduling, believing that fans would not be accustomed to the scheduling, and that they would face competition from New Year's Eve events and television specials like New Year's Rockin' Eve, which is aired by ABC—a corporate sibling to CFP broadcaster ESPN. ESPN then proposed moving the semifinal games to January 2, 2016, a Saturday, arguing that the games would enjoy a higher level of prominence if held on a day of the week that is traditionally associated with college football. However, its proposal was rejected.
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