Why the Group of Five Should Invade New Year’s Day

We are heading to potentially the lamest New Year’s Day in college football history.

This year, the brain wizards that run the College Football Playoff have scheduled the two playoff games, as well as the Cotton Bowl, on Saturday, December 28. Despite the overwhelming evidence that fans want to watch these games on New Year’s Day and not before, the playoff plows ahead.

As a bonus this year, the Orange Bowl also vacatedNew Year’s Day to play Monday Night Football on Dec. 30, one day after the NFL season ends.

New Year’s Day 2020 will bring us only four games, with the Rose and Sugar Bowls the only games within the New Year’s Six to be played that day. Based on previous years, it won’t be that exciting.

We’re now a generation removed from when New Year’s Day mattered for crowning a national champion every year. The day was full of amazing games, coast to coast, for hours. If one game sucked, you simply changed the channel and found a better one. Those days are long gone.

For reasons I still can’t fathom, the Power Five is giving up on New Year’s Day. If they keep abandoning the best day of the year for sitting around and watching football, then the Group of Five needs to step in.