College football TV schedule and open thread: New Year’s Day

Happy New Year, Alligator Army.

There are five college football games on today’s schedule, and these happen to be all of the collegiate football contests that remain before next Monday’s national championship. That, of course, means both College Football Playoff semifinal games are on deck today.

I still have the flu - the flu which will never end, apparently - so, here again are somewhat abbreviated previews. But with playoff games and other big match-ups on the schedule, I don’t think they need much said by me.

Here’s the schedule for today’s games.

Michigan vs. South Carolina (12:00 p.m., ESPN2/WatchESPN): The first game of the day is the Outback Bowl, pitting two eight-win teams against each other. There will undoubtedly be mention on the broadcast of the Jadeveon Clowney hit which took place in this same bowl between these same two teams four years prior.

Central Florida vs. Auburn (12:30 p.m., ESPN/WatchESPN): The Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl features the No. 7 Tigers, SEC West division champions, and the AAC conference title holding No. 12 Knights, who are still being coached by Scott Frost in this bowl, before he decamps full time for Nebraska.

Notre Dame vs. LSU (1:00 p.m., ABC/WatchESPN): Two nine-win teams, the No. 14 Irish and No. 17 Tigers, meet in this year’s Citrus Bowl looking for a tenth win. These two programs last met three seasons ago in the Music City Bowl.

College Football Playoff Semifinals:

Georgia vs. Oklahoma (5:00 p.m., ESPN/WatchESPN): The “Grandaddy of Them All” is a playoff semifinal game this season, and will host the No. 2 Sooners and No. 3 Bulldogs, the Big-12 and SEC champions, respectively. The Rose Bowl traditionally hosts members of the Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences, and those two conferences have had at least one representative in each Rose Bowl game during the last half-century, save the 2001-02 season where it served as the BCS national champion game. This is also the first ever meeting between Oklahoma and Georgia.

Alabama vs. Clemson (8:45 p.m., ESPN/WatchESPN): The No. 1 Tigers and No. 4 Crimson Tide meet in the College Football Playoff for the third consecutive season, but this time in a semifinal and not in the title game. The Allstate Sugar Bowl will decide which one of these two teams punches its ticket to the national championship for the third consecutive season.

And here’s your schedule table.