Dec. 17 is kickoff for New Mexico Bowl

The New Mexico Bowl has a date and kickoff time – 12:15 p.m. on Dec. 17 – after the bowl schedule for the upcoming season was launched on Thursday.

The bowl will air on ESPN. It’s slated to function a group from the Mountain West vs. a group from a pool of leagues – Convention USA, the American Athletic Convention, the Solar Belt or the Mid-American Convention.

Fresno State defeated UTEP in final yr’s version of the sport.

In earlier years, the New Mexico Bowl was the leadoff sport for the bowl season.

Not so anymore.

The video games start on Dec. 16 with the Bahamas Bowl and the Remedy Bowl in Orlando, Florida. They finish with the School Soccer Playoff championship on Jan. 9 on the NFL stadium in Inglewood, California.

In the meantime, the Sugar Bowl has been moved off its standard prime-time spot to 10 a.m. MT Dec. 31 to keep away from a battle with a Monday evening NFL sport.

The CFP semifinals additionally shall be held Dec. 31, a Saturday, on the Peach and Fiesta bowls.

With Jan. 1 falling on Sunday, the video games often performed on New 12 months’s Day have been moved to Jan. 2, when the nationwide vacation is noticed. The transfer to Monday, Jan. 2, is widespread in school soccer to keep away from conflicting with the NFL.

However ESPN discovered itself with a battle that day: The NFL has scheduled the ultimate Monday regular-season sport for that evening, which pressured a relocation by the New Orleans-based Sugar Bowl on the schedule.

The Rose Bowl is scheduled for a 3 p.m. MT begin Jan. 2 on ESPN, and can precede the Payments at Bengals sport.

The final time the Sugar Bowl was performed earlier than Jan. 1 was 1995 when it was a Dec. 31 sport between Virginia Tech and Texas.

The Orange Bowl shall be performed the evening of Dec. 30 and the Cotton Bowl may even be performed on Jan. 2, with an 11 a.m. MT kickoff scheduled.