New Year's Six

New Year's Six
New Year's Six
	A break in play during the 2017 edition of the; Cotton Bowl Classic, one of the New Year's Six
In operation	2014–present
Preceded by	BCS (1998–2013); Bowl Alliance (1995–1997); Bowl Coalition (1992–1994)
Number of New Year's Six games	Six plus the National Championship game
Television partner(s)	ESPN (2014–present)
Most New Year's Six appearances	Ohio State (10)
Most New Year's Six wins	Alabama (9)
Most New Year's Six championships	Alabama (3)
Conference with most appearances	SEC (24)
Conference with most game wins	SEC (20)
Conference with most championships	SEC (6)
Last championship game	January 8, 2024
Current champion	Michigan

The New Year's Six, sometimes abbreviated as NY6, are the following NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) bowl games: the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, and Fiesta Bowl. These games are played annually on or around New Year's Day and represent six of the ten oldest bowl games played at the FBS level.

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These six top-tier bowl games rotate the hosting of the two College Football Playoff (CFP) semifinal games, which determine the teams that play in the final College Football Playoff National Championship game.^[1] The rotation is set on a three-year cycle with the following pairings: Rose–Sugar, Orange–Cotton, and Peach-Fiesta. The National Championship game may be considered part of the New Year's Six, depending on context. As of the 2024 season, the New Year's Six hosts the Quarterfinal and Semifinal rounds of the college football playoff.^[2]

Using the final CFP rankings, the selection committee seeds and pairs the 12 teams that appear in the College Football Playoff with the New Year's six hosting the quarterfinal games which feature the 4 highest ranked conference champions, who receive a bye to the quarterfinals, and play against the 4 winners of the College football playoff first round games. As well as the Semifinal games which feature the winners of the quarterfinal games.

Overall, 12 teams are selected each football season for these major, top-tier bowls. These usually include the champions of the "Power Five" conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC) as the top 4 ranked conference champions receive a bye to the quarterfinals.

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system that created five bowl game match-ups involving ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of college football, including an opportunity for the top two teams to compete in the BCS National Championship Game. The system was in place for the 1998 through 2013 seasons and in 2014 was replaced by the College Football Playoff. The four-team playoffs consist of two semifinal games, with the winners advancing to the College Football Playoff National Championship. If New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, the traditional New Year's Day games are played on January 2 in deference to the National Football League's week 17 games.

In June 2012, the BCS conference presidents approved the College Football Playoff to replace the Bowl Championship Series.^[3] Three bowls—Rose, Sugar, and Orange—because of their contracts with Power 5 conferences, were selected to be part of the rotating semifinal playoff games, with three more bowls to be named.^[1] Because of issues about fairness and the Big East's BCS Automatic Qualifier conference status, conference commissioners began to consider accommodating the Group of Five leagues with a seventh participating bowl. On November 12, 2012, in Denver, the conference commissioners granted the top Group of Five conference champion a guaranteed slot in one of the six premier bowls.^[3] In July 2013, the Cotton Bowl Classic, the Fiesta Bowl, and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl were selected as the other three rotating semifinal playoff bowls ahead of the Holiday Bowl. Also, the BCS conference commissioners meetings selected AT&T Stadium as the first host of the College Football Playoff Championship Game on January 12, 2015.^[1]

When the playoff expanded to 12 teams beginning in 2024, the six bowls were designated as the quarterfinals and semifinals on a rotating basis.^[4]

Three of the bowls have traditional tie-ins with the specified conference champions in the years they are not hosting playoff games (2014–2023):

Rose Bowl: Big Ten vs. Pac-12^[5]
Sugar Bowl: SEC vs. Big 12^[3]
Orange Bowl: ACC vs. Big Ten, SEC, or Notre Dame^[6]

When the conference champion is unavailable, the bowls invite the next-best team from that conference. The Cotton,^[1] Fiesta,^[5] and Peach Bowls have no conference tie-ins;^[5] as such, the best conference champion from the Group of Five will play in one of those bowls if it does not qualify for the CFP semifinal until 2024 when all games are apart of the playoff and thus removes all conference tie ins.^[3]

Games are listed in chronological order, with final CFP rankings, and win–loss records prior to the respective bowl being played.