2016–17 NCAA football bowl games
The 2016–17 NCAA football bowl games were a series of college football bowl games which completed the 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The games began on December 17, 2016, and aside from the all-star games ended with the 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship which was played on January 9, 2017.
| 2016–17 NCAA football bowl games | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Season | 2016 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Regular season | August 27, 2016 – December 10, 2016 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Number of bowls | 42 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All-star games | 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowl games | December 17, 2016 – January 9, 2017 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National Championship | 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Location of Championship | Raymond James Stadium Tampa, Florida | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Champions | Clemson Tigers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowl Challenge Cup winner | ACC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The total of 41 team-competitive postseason games in FBS, including the national championship game, was unchanged from the previous year. While bowl games had been the purview of only the very best teams for nearly a century, this was the eleventh consecutive year that teams with non-winning seasons participated in bowl games. To fill the 80 available team-competitive bowl slots, a new record of 20 teams (25% of all participants) with non-winning seasons participated in bowl games—17 had a .500 (6–6) season, and three losing teams with sub-.500 records (one 6–7 and two 5–7). This was the fifth time in six years that teams with actual losing records were invited to bowl games. None of the six teams that played in bowls on December 26 had a winning record.