Division I FBS bowl games

College Football Playoff bowl games

Main article: 2023–24 College Football Playoff

Cotton

Peach

Orange

Fiesta

Rose

Sugar

National Championship

Locations of 2023–24 CFP bowls
– National Championship, – Semifinal Bowl, – Non-semifinal bowl

The College Football Playoff system is used to determine a national championship of Division I FBS college football. A committee of experts ranked the top 25 teams in the nation after each of the last seven weeks of the regular season. The top four teams^{[lower-alpha 3]} in the final ranking are then seeded in a single-elimination semifinal round, with the winners advanced to the National Championship game. This playoff was the last to use a four-team bracket, with the College Football Playoff set to expand to 12 teams in 2024.^[2]

The semifinal games for the 2023 season were the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl. Both were played on January 1, 2024, as part of a yearly rotation of three pairs of two bowls, commonly referred to as the New Year's Six bowl games. The winners advanced to the 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship that was contested on January 8, 2024, at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.

On December 3, 2023, the College Football Playoff committee announced that it had selected Michigan, Washington, Texas, and Alabama to participate in the 2023–24 College Football Playoff. The committee's decision to select the Southeastern Conference's (SEC) Alabama (12–1) instead of the Atlantic Coast Conference's (ACC) Florida State (13–0), who became the first undefeated Power Five conference team to not qualify for the playoff, received intense criticism from fans, writers, and commentators. Specifically, several of these viewers accused the committee of corruption, bias, and favoritism towards the SEC.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]} The CFP committee chair and others defended the selection of Alabama, which defeated five ranked teams (compared to Florida State's three) during the season, including No. 1 ranked Georgia in the last game of the SEC season, saying that Alabama was currently the better team overall.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Interior view of NRG Stadium, site of the championship game

	Semifinals					Championship
	January 1 – Rose Bowl Rose Bowl, Pasadena
	1	Michigan (OT)	27
	4	Alabama	20			January 8 – National Championship NRG Stadium, Houston
						1	Michigan	34
	January 1 – Sugar Bowl Caesars Superdome, New Orleans					2	Washington	13
	2	Washington	37
	3	Texas	31

Each of the games in the following table was televised by ESPN.

New Year's Six bowl games

Date	Time (EST)	Game	Site	Teams	Affiliations	Results	Attendance
Dec. 29	8:00 p.m.	Cotton Bowl Classic	AT&T Stadium Arlington, Texas	No. 9 Missouri Tigers (10–2) No. 7 Ohio State Buckeyes (11–1)	SEC Big Ten	Missouri 14 Ohio State 3	70,114
Dec. 30	12:00 p.m.	Peach Bowl	Mercedes-Benz Stadium Atlanta, Georgia	No. 11 Ole Miss Rebels (10–2) No. 10 Penn State Nittany Lions (10–2)	SEC Big Ten	Ole Miss 38 Penn State 25	71,230
	4:00 p.m.	Orange Bowl	Hard Rock Stadium Miami Gardens, Florida	No. 6 Georgia Bulldogs (12–1) No. 5 Florida State Seminoles (13–0)	SEC ACC	Georgia 63 Florida State 3	63,324
Jan. 1	1:00 p.m.	Fiesta Bowl	State Farm Stadium Glendale, Arizona	No. 8 Oregon Ducks (11–2) No. 23 Liberty Flames (13–0)[lower-alpha 4]	Pac-12 C–USA	Oregon 45 Liberty 6	47,769
	5:00 p.m.	Rose Bowl (Playoff semifinal game)	Rose Bowl Pasadena, California	No. 1 Michigan Wolverines (13–0)† No. 4 Alabama Crimson Tide (12–1)†	Big Ten SEC	Michigan 27 Alabama 20 (OT)	96,371
	8:45 p.m.	Sugar Bowl (Playoff semifinal game)	Caesars Superdome New Orleans, Louisiana	No. 2 Washington Huskies (13–0)† No. 3 Texas Longhorns (12–1)†	Pac-12 Big 12	Washington 37 Texas 31	68,791
Jan. 8	7:30 p.m.	College Football Playoff National Championship	NRG Stadium Houston, Texas	No. 1 Michigan Wolverines (14–0)‡ No. 2 Washington Huskies (14–0)‡	Big Ten Pac-12	Michigan 34 Washington 13	72,808

† Semifinal teams were chosen by the selection committee.

‡ Semifinal winners advanced to the championship game.

Division I FCS bowl game

Celebration

Crossroads

Live United

Heritage

Florida Beach

Isthmus

Lakefront

New England

Bushnell

Chapman

Whitelaw

Lynah

CC-MAC

Cape Henry

Cape Charles

Locations of 2023 Non-DI FBS bowls.
– DI FCS, – DII, – DIII

The Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) has one bowl game, played between HBCUs, which acts as a de facto Black college football national championship. The FCS also has a postseason bracket tournament that culminates in the 2024 NCAA Division I Football Championship Game.

Division II bowl games

Division III bowl games

All-star games

Each of these games features college seniors, or players whose college football eligibility is ending, who are individually invited by game organizers. These games are scheduled to follow the team-competitive bowls, to allow players selected from bowl teams to participate. The all-star games may include some players from non-FBS programs.

The NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, which debuted in 2012 and was played 12 times through January 2023, was discontinued. The East–West Shrine Bowl relocated from Nevada (where its prior two editions had been played) to Texas.

CFP top 25 standings and bowl games

The College Football Playoff (CFP) selection committee announced its final team rankings for the season on December 3, 2023. It was the 10th season of the CFP era, and the last one with a four-team playoff. This was the first time that an undefeated Power Five conference champion (Florida State) was left out of the semifinals.^[26]

Bowl-eligible teams

Generally, a team must have at least six wins to be considered bowl eligible, with at least five of those wins being against FBS opponents. The College Football Playoff semifinal games are determined based on the top four seeds in the playoff committee's final rankings. The remainder of the bowl-eligible teams are selected by each respective bowl based on conference tie-ins, order of selection, match-up considerations, and other factors.

• ACC (11): Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami (FL), NC State, North Carolina, Syracuse, Virginia Tech
• American (6): Memphis, Rice, SMU, South Florida, Tulane, UTSA
• Big Ten (9): Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota,^{[lower-alpha 5]} Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Wisconsin
• Big 12 (9): Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech, UCF, West Virginia
• C–USA (4): Jacksonville State,^{[lower-alpha 6]} Liberty, New Mexico State, Western Kentucky
• MAC (6): Bowling Green, Eastern Michigan, Miami (OH), Northern Illinois, Ohio, Toledo
• Mountain West (7): Air Force, Boise State, Fresno State, San Jose State, UNLV, Utah State, Wyoming
• Pac-12 (8): Arizona, California, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington
• SEC (9): Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Missouri, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas A&M
• Sun Belt (12): Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, James Madison,^{[lower-alpha 6]} Louisiana, Marshall, Old Dominion, South Alabama, Texas State, Troy
• Independent (1): Notre Dame

Number of bowl berths available: 82
Number of bowl-eligible teams: 79
Number of conditionally bowl-eligible teams: 2: (Jacksonville State and James Madison)^{[lower-alpha 6]}
Number of teams qualified by APR: 1 (Minnesota)^[27]

Bowl-ineligible teams

• ACC (3): Pittsburgh, Virginia, Wake Forest
• American (8): Charlotte, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Navy, North Texas, Temple, Tulsa, UAB
• Big Ten (5): Illinois, Indiana, Michigan State, Nebraska, Purdue
• Big 12 (5): Baylor, BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, TCU
• C–USA (5): FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, Sam Houston,^{[lower-alpha 7]} UTEP
• MAC (6): Akron, Ball State, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Kent State, Western Michigan
• Mountain West (5): Colorado State, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, San Diego State
• Pac-12 (4): Arizona State,^{[lower-alpha 8]} Colorado, Stanford, Washington State
• SEC (5): Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Vanderbilt
• Sun Belt (2): Louisiana–Monroe, Southern Miss
• Independent (3): Army,^{[lower-alpha 9]} UConn, UMass

Number of bowl-ineligible teams: 51

Conference champions' bowl games

Ranks are per the final CFP rankings, released on December 3, 2023, with win–loss records at that time.

^CFP College Football Playoff participant

Conference performance in bowl games

Source:^[30]

Note: The only independent team that played in an FBS bowl game was Notre Dame.