The 2026 Rose Bowl will kick off approximately an hour earlier than it traditionally has.
ESPN and the College Football Playoff announced that the three quarterfinal games on New Year’s Day will begin earlier than they did a season ago. The Orange Bowl will kick off at Noon ET, the Rose Bowl will begin at 4 p.m. ET and the Sugar Bowl will begin at 8 p.m. ET.
In 2025, the Peach Bowl began at 1 p.m. ET, with the Rose Bowl at 5 p.m. ET and the Sugar Bowl originally scheduled for an 8:45 p.m. ET kickoff before it was delayed until Jan. 2 because of the New Year’s Eve terror attack in the French Quarter.
"This New Year's Day schedule adjustment is the result of a thoughtful collaboration between the CFP, ESPN, the Capital One Orange Bowl, the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential, and the Allstate Sugar Bowl," CFP executive director Rich Clark said in a statement. "All three bowls shifting their start times allows us to place each game in an ideal window on New Year's Day and provide the optimal viewing experience. New Year's Day and college football are synonymous with each other, and these changes only strengthen that relationship."
The Rose Bowl’s time change may not seem significant at first glance. However, the bowl game’s time and date have been a longstanding college football tradition. With an approximately 2 p.m. PT kickoff, the sun sets against the San Gabriel Mountains in the second half of the game. Now, the sunset will likely happen late in the fourth quarter as the game concludes.
Seriously, the sunset is a big deal. That late third quarter sunset is a glorious sight, and a big reason why it took so long for the playoff to expand to 12 teams. The Rose Bowl likes having the second-half visuals for what's typically the most-watched New Year's Day bowl game. But the Sugar Bowl was also sometimes starting after 9 p.m. ET for a game that typically includes a team from the Eastern Time Zone.
The playoff and the Rose Bowl reached a compromise of sorts ahead of the 2024 season as the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowls will always be quarterfinal games and keep their New Year’s Day timeslots. The other four games — the Cotton Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Peach Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl, rotate being quarterfinal and semifinal sites in the current format.
After hosting a semifinal to cap the 2024 season, the Cotton Bowl is the first quarterfinal at the end of the 2025 season. That game will begin at 7:30 p.m. ET on Dec. 31. The Fiesta Bowl will be played on Jan. 8 and the Peach Bowl will be Jan. 9 as they host semifinals and the national title game is Jan. 19 at 7:30 p.m. ET.
