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Sugar Bowl moves up date, kickoff time for this year’s matchup with SEC and Big 12
By Keith Farner
Published:
The Sugar Bowl is moving up the date and kickoff time of its game this year because of changes with the NFL schedule.
This year’s game between the SEC and Big 12 will be played on Saturday, December 31, which happens to come exactly 50 years after the first New Year’s Eve Sugar Bowl. Kickoff is scheduled for noon ET and the game will be televised by ESPN. It will be the sixth Sugar Bowl to be played on New Year’s Eve, according to a Big 12 release.
The game date has been adjusted due to changes with the NFL schedule. The game will return to January 1 following the 2023 football season as it will be a College Football Playoff Semifinal.
“With the recently expanded NFL schedule, there is an additional week of Monday Night Football, which conflicts with our scheduled January 2nd Sugar Bowl this year,” said Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley. “In talks with our conference partners, the Big 12 and the SEC, as well as with ESPN and the College Football Playoff, all parties agreed that a December 31 game made more sense. With New Year’s Eve being a Saturday, we hope it will provide more fans the opportunity to attend the game without work conflicts.”
The champions of those leagues are designated to meet in the game unless one or both qualify for the College Football Playoff, in which case the next highest-ranked teams from the respective leagues will come to New Orleans. The upcoming game will mark the 17th Sugar Bowl to pit teams from the Big 12 and SEC against each other – it is the sixth year of a contractual agreement for the two conferences to clash in the Sugar Bowl.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
