ESPN’s “College GameDay” has announced its locations for the semifinal rounds of the College Football Playoff.
GameDay is headed to both Miami for the Orange Bowl showdown between No. 7 Notre Dame and No. 6 Penn State at Hard Rock Stadium on Thursday, and to Arlington for Friday’s Cotton Bowl matchup between No. 8 Ohio State and No. 5 Texas at AT&T Stadium.
Both games are scheduled to kick off at 6:30 p.m. CT on ESPN. GameDay will be broadcasting at 5 p.m. both days.
For Saban, he’s seen the Buckeyes more than any other team (besides Alabama) since his retirement last January. Friday will mark the sixth time this season alone that GameDay will be on site for an Ohio State football game — and the third straight week.
The Buckeyes routed No. 1 Oregon, 41-21, at the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day to advance to the semifinals of the playoffs. Texas survived Arizona State, 39-31, in double overtime at the Peach Bowl.
Nick Saban had perfect record at Cotton Bowl, Dallas Cowboys’ home stadium
The Cotton Bowl venue in particular holds a lot of fond memories for Saban and Alabama fans. Saban’s Crimson Tide teams were a perfect 6-0 in the Dallas Cowboys’ home stadium, starting with their 41-14 victory over Michigan to open the 2012 season en route to their third national championship in four years.
Alabama returned there for the 2015 season opener against Wisconsin and made the trek back to Arlington later that year for the Cotton Bowl against Michigan State on New Year’s Eve, a 38-0 Crimson Tide romp of Mark Dantonio’s Spartans. Alabama won the national championship a week later against Clemson.
In 2016, Alabama opened the year against USC with a 52-6 beatdown in a game that saw more fight from the Crimson Tide sidelines than the team the Trojans put on the field that night. Saban teams won two more times in Arlington — 31-14 vs. Notre Dame in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day 2021, played that year in Arlington instead of Pasadena, and 27-6 vs. Cincinnati in the Cotton Bowl 364 days later.
Saban teams were 2-0 at the Orange Bowl venue, crushing Notre Dame 42-14 for the national championship in January 2013, and holding on for a 45-34 win over Kyler Murray and Oklahoma in the 2018 Orange Bowl in the semifinal round of the playoffs.
College football is having its first postseason without Saban as the head coach of a program that appeared in the four-team Playoff more times than any other since its debut in 2014. All told, Saban guided Alabama to the four-team Playoff eight times and failed to qualify only twice, in 2019 and 2022.
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