Fiesta Bowl: Latest Results, Recent History, and What to Know

The most recent Fiesta Bowl came down to the last minute. Miami beat Ole Miss 31-27 on January 8, 2026, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, when quarterback Carson Beck scrambled three yards for the winning touchdown with 18 seconds on the clock. It was a College Football Playoff semifinal, and it sent the Hurricanes to their first national championship game in more than two decades.

Table of Contents

• What is the Fiesta Bowl?
• The bowl that gate-crashed its way in
• How the Fiesta Bowl fits in the 12-team CFP
• Recent Fiesta Bowl results
• What’s next: the 2027 Fiesta Bowl
• How teams get to Glendale
• Going to the game: Glendale logistics
• What to do in the Valley
• How rosters can shift between November and kickoff
• Q&A

Check the calendar before you plan around this one. There are two Fiesta Bowls in 2026 and none at all in 2027. The January 8 semifinal above was the 55th edition, the 56th arrives on December 30, 2026, and the 57th does not come until January 1, 2028. The game has bounced between late December and early January for decades, so this happens often: there was no Fiesta Bowl in calendar 1981, 1998, 2015, 2018, 2020, 2023, or 2025 either.

The next one is Wednesday, December 30, 2026, and it opens the entire quarterfinal round. If you are catching up on what the Fiesta Bowl looks like today, this is the guide.

What is the Fiesta Bowl?

The Fiesta Bowl is a college football bowl game played in the Phoenix area every year since 1971. It is much younger than the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Cotton Bowls, and its entire history is a story of a game that refused to accept the seat it was assigned.

Vrbo has sponsored it since 2022, so the official name is the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl. The game has churned through title sponsors more than most: Sunkist, IBM, Tostitos, Vizio, BattleFrog, and PlayStation have all held the naming rights at some point.

That first sponsorship was itself a landmark. When Sunkist Growers signed on in September 1985, the Fiesta Bowl became the first college bowl game to sell its title to a corporation. Every sponsored bowl since follows a path this one cut.

The game has also given away more than $12 million to charity over its history, including $1 million in emergency relief during the pandemic.

The bowl that gate-crashed its way in

The Fiesta Bowl exists because the Western Athletic Conference got tired of being ignored. The WAC had been founded in 1962 by six schools, Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, and its champions kept finishing seasons with nowhere to play. Wyoming won the league in 1968 and got no bowl invitation. Arizona State won it in 1969 and got nothing. In 1970 an undefeated Arizona State team was passed over by every major bowl and ended up in the Peach Bowl.

So Arizona built its own. The Fiesta Bowl launched in 1971 with an automatic berth for the WAC champion, played in the last week of December, including four straight years on Christmas Day from 1976 through 1979.

For its first decade the game was effectively an Arizona State showcase. Frank Kush coached the Sun Devils in five of the first seven editions, going 4-1, and no coach has appeared in the game more often in a comparable span.

The WAC arrangement lasted until 1978, when Arizona and Arizona State left for the Pac-10 and the tie-in ended. Losing it turned out to be the making of the game.

Without a conference tie-in to honor, the Fiesta Bowl could invite anyone, and in the 1980s it used that freedom to stage games nobody else could. The breakthrough came after the 1986 season, when No. 1 Miami and No. 2 Penn State, both independents and both free to choose, agreed to meet in Glendale’s predecessor venue for the national championship. The Fiesta Bowl outbid the competition, scheduled the game for the night after the New Year’s Day bowls so it would have the stage to itself, and watched Penn State win 14-10 in front of the largest television audience college football had ever drawn.

Two years later it hosted another de facto title game, No. 1 Notre Dame against undefeated No. 3 West Virginia. By the end of the decade the Fiesta Bowl was a major bowl in everything but name, and when the Bowl Coalition formed in 1992 it was included. The Cotton Bowl was not.

It kept opening doors after that. Utah became the first team from outside the automatic qualifying conferences to play in a BCS game here in 2005. Two years later, in the first Fiesta Bowl at the new Glendale stadium, Boise State beat Oklahoma 43-42 in overtime on a sequence of trick plays that is still cited as one of the greatest games the sport has produced.

How the Fiesta Bowl fits in the 12-team CFP

The College Football Playoff expanded from four teams to 12 for the 2024-25 season. The Fiesta Bowl is one of six bowls that host playoff games on a rotation, alongside the Cotton, Orange, Peach, Rose, and Sugar Bowls, alternating between quarterfinal and semifinal duty.

Here is the 12-team format for the 2026 season:

• The field includes the four Power Four conference champions (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC), who are guaranteed a spot regardless of where they finish in the rankings
• Plus the highest-ranked champion from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12, and Sun Belt
• Plus the next seven highest-ranked teams
• Notre Dame is guaranteed a spot if it finishes in the top 12
• The top four seeds get byes to the quarterfinals
• Seeds 5 through 12 play first-round games on campus
• Quarterfinals and semifinals are at the bowl sites

The Power Four guarantee is new for 2026, a response to 2025, when Duke won the ACC at 8-5 and missed the field while two Group of Five teams got in on rankings.

The field itself stays at 12. The CFP management committee announced in January 2026 that it would hold the format steady for a third year after the Big Ten and SEC could not agree on expansion. The SEC favored a 16-team model with five automatic qualifiers, and the Big Ten pushed for a 24-team field.

There is a certain irony in the Fiesta Bowl hosting a system built on guaranteed access. This is the game that spent forty years proving the old guaranteed-access model was broken.

Recent Fiesta Bowl results

Fans got this one badly wrong. The split on RallyFuel’s Ole Miss vs. Miami game page sat at roughly 68-32 for Ole Miss, even though Miami was a 3.5 point favorite. Miami won. That completed a clean sweep: fans had also picked against the Hurricanes in the Cotton Bowl quarterfinal, and Miami beat the consensus in both rounds before losing the title game.

There is a nice coaching footnote to the most recent one. Mario Cristobal is now 1-1 in this game, having lost the 2021 edition with Oregon before winning it with Miami. Ole Miss was led by Pete Golding, promoted from defensive coordinator, in his first season running the program.

Two records stand out in the all-time table. Penn State is 8-0 in the Fiesta Bowl, a perfect record across eight appearances, which is the best mark of any program with more than two trips. It splits neatly between two coaches: Joe Paterno went 6-0 here across 1977, 1980, 1982, 1987, 1992, and 1997, and James Franklin has gone 2-0 in 2017 and 2024. No coach has more Fiesta Bowl wins than Paterno, and none with more than one appearance has a better record. Ohio State has the most appearances with nine and a 5-4 record. At the other end, Notre Dame is 1-5 here, its worst record at any major bowl.

The 2021 edition has the strangest line in the book: Iowa State beat Oregon 34-17 with only players’ families admitted during the pandemic. The official record carries no attendance figure for it at all.

What’s next: the 2027 Fiesta Bowl

The Fiesta Bowl is a CFP quarterfinal on Wednesday, December 30, 2026, and it has the round to itself. The other three quarterfinals, at the Cotton, Peach, and Rose Bowls, are played two days later on Friday, January 1, 2027. That makes the Fiesta Bowl the first playoff game after the campus round and the only one with an uncontested window.

Kickoff is 5:30 p.m. Mountain, which is 7:30 p.m. Eastern, on TNT, with a simulcast on truTV and streaming on HBO Max. The bowl describes it as an exclusive football window, and it is the only playoff game that day.

The winner advances to a semifinal, either the Orange Bowl on Thursday, January 14, 2027, or the Sugar Bowl on Friday, January 15. The National Championship Game follows on Monday, January 25, 2027, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

The next six years are locked in. In July 2026 the Fiesta Bowl and the CFP finalized dates through the 2031-32 season, four quarterfinals and two semifinals:

If you are planning a trip around the game rather than a team, January 11, 2029 is the next semifinal.

How teams get to Glendale

The CFP selection committee, 13 members drawn mostly from former coaches, athletic directors, and journalists, releases weekly rankings every Tuesday night in November and into December. The final ranking sets the 12-team bracket.

The committee weighs three main factors:

• Overall record
• Head-to-head results between contenders
• Strength of schedule

Strength of schedule is where teams with one or two losses often outrank undefeated teams from weaker conferences. That gets more interesting in 2026, as the ACC and SEC both move to nine-game conference schedules, which is expected to push more two and three loss teams into the conversation.

Like the Cotton Bowl and unlike the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl has no conference tie-in under the current structure. Its old Big 12 arrangement ended in 2014. Matchups now come down to bracket position, which suits a game whose whole identity was built on taking whoever was most interesting. RallyFuel’s school rivalry tool puts two programs side by side on NIL activity, fan engagement, and rankings, which helps when the bracket produces a matchup you have never seen.

Going to the game: Glendale logistics

The Fiesta Bowl is played at State Farm Stadium, 1 Cardinals Drive, Glendale, Arizona, about 15 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix. Capacity is roughly 63,400 for football. The building opened in 2006 and has two features worth knowing: a retractable roof and a natural grass field that rolls out of the stadium entirely on a tray so it can sit in the sun. Inside, the temperature is typically held around 78 degrees.

Tickets. Buy through the CFP and Fiesta Bowl official sites, participating school allotments, or verified resale platforms like Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, or StubHub. A December 30 quarterfinal is easier to get into than a semifinal, and the Fiesta Bowl has run below capacity in several recent editions.

Getting there. There is no light rail to Glendale. Valley Metro’s line serves Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa, which means the stadium is a drive or a rideshare from almost anywhere you would stay.

• Driving. Access is from Loop 101 and Loop 303. There is parking for roughly 14,000 vehicles, generally in the $10 to $30 range depending on the event and lot, and the venue is cashless.
• Getting out. This is the recurring complaint. Exiting the lots after a full house is slow, and post-event rideshare pickup zones can be a long walk and poorly organized. Budget an hour of patience or plan to stay in the area and wait it out.
• Stay in Westgate. The Westgate Entertainment District sits directly across from the stadium, with hotels, bars, and restaurants inside a short walk. It is the single best way to avoid the traffic problem.

Where to stay. Three practical bases:

• Westgate and Glendale: walk to the stadium, limited inventory, books out first
• Downtown Phoenix: more hotels, better restaurants, about 20 minutes away without traffic
• Old Town Scottsdale: the nightlife option, roughly 30 minutes east

Bag policy. State Farm Stadium allows a maximum of two items per person: one clear plastic, vinyl, or PVC bag no larger than 12 by 6 by 12 inches, or a one gallon clear freezer bag, plus one small clutch no larger than 4.5 by 6.5 inches. There is no bag storage on site, so anything non compliant goes back to the car. You may bring one factory sealed 16.9 ounce bottle of plain water. Drones are banned from the entire property, parking lots included.

What to do in the Valley

The Fiesta Bowl Parade has run since 1973 and moves down Central Avenue in Phoenix, with marching bands, floats, equestrian units, and a grand marshal. The 2026 edition was led by WWE star Nikki Bella. Check the date against your kickoff, since the parade does not always fall the day before the game.

The Fiesta Bowl Fan Fest runs alongside the game with live music. The 2026 edition was headlined by Arizona native and 15-time Grammy nominee Dierks Bentley, which gives a sense of the scale.

Westgate is the default pregame gathering point, an outdoor district of bars and restaurants directly across from the stadium, with Desert Diamond Arena next door.

Hike in the morning. National Geographic has ranked Phoenix among the best hiking cities in America, and the trailheads are inside the metro. Closest to the stadium is White Tank Mountain Regional Park in Waddell, west of Glendale, where the Black Rock and Waterfall loops are best at sunrise. Further in, try the Mohave Trail in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, the National or Mormon trails at South Mountain Park, or the Gateway Loop in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale.

The museums are better than visitors expect:

• The Heard Museum in Phoenix, devoted to Native cultures and art, and the single best introduction to the region you can get in two hours
• The Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, which is odd on paper and excellent in practice
• Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home and studio
• Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West

The rest of the Valley rewards an extra day:

• Old Town Scottsdale: galleries, patios, and the densest concentration of good restaurants in the metro
• Desert Botanical Garden: in Papago Park, worth two hours even if gardens are not your thing
• Roosevelt Row: the Phoenix arts district, murals and independent shops
• Sedona and the Verde Valley: about two hours north, red rock country and Arizona’s most accessible wine trail
• The Grand Canyon: roughly four hours to the South Rim, a long day but a reasonable one

Early January is the best weather Phoenix gets, with daytime highs usually in the 60s and 70s. Nights get cold in a way visitors underestimate, so bring a jacket for an evening kickoff.

Food to seek out: the Sonoran hot dog, a bacon wrapped hot dog in a bolillo roll with beans and salsa, and the Valley’s Mexican food generally, which is closer to Sonora than to Tex-Mex.

How rosters can shift between November and kickoff

The CFP runs from mid December through late January, and rosters at the start of the playoff do not always look like rosters at the end. A few moving pieces:

NFL Draft opt-outs. Projected first and second round picks sometimes sit out bowl games to protect draft stock. This was common in non-playoff bowls and is less common inside the CFP, where the games matter more.

Transfer portal. The portal window opens in December. Players unhappy with playing time, position room, or fit can enter, and some leave mid playoff run. RallyFuel’s transfer portal tracker filters by portal status, sport, and conference.

NIL and revenue sharing. Collectives and, since the House settlement took effect, direct school revenue sharing can keep a star on the roster who might otherwise leave. For 2025-26 the revenue sharing cap sat at $20.5 million per school, with football taking the majority at most Power Four programs.

Miami’s run through the 2026 playoff is the clearest recent example of what a portal era roster can do. Carson Beck arrived from Georgia and threw for 268 yards and ran in the winning touchdown in this game. A quarterback who spent four years in one program and won a semifinal for it is now the exception rather than the rule.

When you are predicting playoff games, especially deep into the bracket, check who is actually playing rather than assuming the November depth chart still holds.

Q&A

Q: Who won the most recent Fiesta Bowl? Miami beat Ole Miss 31-27 on January 8, 2026, in a CFP semifinal at State Farm Stadium. Carson Beck scrambled three yards for the winning touchdown with 18 seconds left and was named offensive MVP, with defensive back Jakobe Thomas taking defensive honors. Miami went on to lose the national championship game to Indiana.

Q: When is the next Fiesta Bowl? Wednesday, December 30, 2026, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on TNT. It is a CFP quarterfinal and the only playoff game that day, with the other three quarterfinals following on January 1, 2027.

Q: Is there a Fiesta Bowl in 2027? No. The 56th Fiesta Bowl is December 30, 2026, and the 57th is January 1, 2028, so no game falls in calendar 2027. Because the game moves between late December and early January, some years get two and others get none. Calendar 2026 gets two, on January 8 and December 30.

Q: Where is the Fiesta Bowl played? State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, about 15 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix. The game was played at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe from 1971 through 2006 and moved to Glendale for the 2007 edition.

Q: When does the Fiesta Bowl next host a semifinal? Thursday, January 11, 2029, confirmed in July 2026 when the bowl and the CFP finalized dates through 2032. The Fiesta Bowl is a quarterfinal for the 2026, 2027, 2029 and 2030 seasons, and hosts semifinals in January 2029 and January 2032.

Q: Which team has the best Fiesta Bowl record? Penn State is 8-0 across eight appearances, the best record of any program with more than two trips. Ohio State has the most appearances at nine, with a 5-4 record. Notre Dame is 1-5.

Q: What is the State Farm Stadium bag policy? Two items maximum per person: one clear plastic, vinyl, or PVC bag no larger than 12 by 6 by 12 inches or a one gallon clear freezer bag, plus one small clutch no larger than 4.5 by 6.5 inches. There is no bag storage on site. One factory sealed 16.9 ounce bottle of plain water is permitted.

Q: How do you get to State Farm Stadium? By car or rideshare. There is no light rail to Glendale, and Valley Metro’s line serves Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa instead. Access is from Loop 101 and Loop 303, parking holds about 14,000 vehicles and is cashless, and getting out after the game is slow. Staying in the Westgate Entertainment District across from the stadium lets you walk.