Where is the 2024 College Football National Championship Game held? Perhaps you’re wanting to get a head start on your preparations. Maybe you need to con a loved one into a “holiday” that happily coincides with the 2023 season finale. We’ve got all the information about the 2024 College Football National Championship Game location that you could ever need.
2024 College Football National Championship Game Location
- Location: Houston, Texas
- Stadium: NRG Stadium
The host of the 2024 College Football National Championship was decided back in 2017 as part of an announcement on the location of four editions of the college football title game. Prior to the College Football Playoff and College Football National Championship Game, the BCS National Championship Game rotated between four locations.
MORE: College Football Playoff Expansion Timeline
The CFP Selection Committee aimed to take the title game to multiple markets. During the announcement that NRG Stadium would be the location for the 2024 College Football National Championship Game, CFP Executive Bill Hancock reiterated that commitment to moving the title game from the traditional four states that hosted the BCS.
“We said we were gonna move the championship game around when we started the Playoff,” Hancock told the media in November 2017. “We were serious about that, and now we’ve done it.”
NRG Stadium To Host the College Football National Championship for the First Time
When NRG Stadium hosts the 2024 College Football National Championship Game on Monday, Jan. 8, 2024, it will mark the first time that college football’s title game has been played at 1 NRG Parkway.
However, the stadium — formerly named Reliant Stadium upon its completion in 2002 — is no stranger to college football. In fact, the home of the Houston Texans has played host to more CFB games than many of the stadiums utilized since the inception of the four-team College Football Playoff from the 2014 season onwards.
NRG Stadium has hosted the annual Texas Bowl since 2006. It was also the home of the Houston Bowl that preceded the Texas Bowl from the opening of the stadium in 2002. The first Texas Bowl held in the stadium featured Rutgers and Kansas State, while Texas Tech defeated Ole Miss 42-25 in the most recent event in December 2022.
While the 2024 College Football National Championship Game will be the biggest college game held by NRG Stadium, there has been big-time, meaningful college football played there previously. The 2002 and 2005 Big 12 Championships were both held in the venue, with Vince Young guiding the Texas Longhorns to a rampant victory over Colorado there in the latter edition.
MORE: When Are the College Football Playoffs in 2024?
Additionally, regular-season games featuring Houston, Rice, Grambling State, Southern University, Texas Southern, and Prairie View A&M have been held in NRG Stadium while the “Battle of the Piney Woods” — one of the oldest rivalries in Texas football between Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston State — is now permanently held at the stadium.
Although NRG Stadium will host the College Football National Championship for the first time in 2024, the state of Texas is very much where college football lives. Unsurprisingly, this won’t be the first time that the state has hosted the title game within the College Football Playoff era.
AT&T Stadium in Arlington hosted the 2015 College Football National Championship Game, the first of the CFP four-team era. To watch the fourth-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes defeat Heisman Trophy-winner Marcus Mariota and the second-ranked Oregon Ducks 42-20 in the title game, 85,788 fans packed into the home of the Dallas Cowboys.
Meanwhile, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas, was one of the venues used during the Bowl Coalition between the 1992 and 1994 college football seasons. The stadium saw Notre Dame defeat Texas A&M in consecutive seasons before 21st-ranked USC despatched Texas Tech in the final Cotton Bowl of the Bowl Coalition era.
