New Year’s holders

Who rings in the most new years

The programs that have held the belt on the most January firsts: Princeton (19); Yale (13); USC (10); Alabama (8); Harvard (8); Auburn (6); Army (4); Ohio State (4); Ole Miss (4); Pennsylvania (4).

It rewards a particular kind of program — not the one that grabs the belt in September, but the one that is still holding it when the calendar turns, after the rivalry weeks and the bowl.

Princeton’s 7 straight

The longest run of consecutive New Year’s Days with the same holder belongs to Princeton: every January 1 from 1870 through 1876, 7 in a row.

How sticky is it?

A New Year’s holder was still the holder the following New Year’s Day 31 times out of 156 — 20%. Most years, the belt that starts the year is not the belt that ends it. The last program to ring in two in a row was Washington, on January 1 of 2023 and 2024.

This January 1, the holder was Notre Dame.

The last 25 January firsts

Year by year, who had the belt when the ball dropped: 2002–2003 Miami; 2004–2006 USC; 2007 Ohio State; 2008 Missouri; 2009 Oklahoma; 2010 Alabama; 2011 Auburn; 2012 Clemson; 2013 Baylor; 2014 Oklahoma; 2015–2016 TCU; 2017 Alabama; 2018 Pittsburgh; 2019 Ohio State; 2020 Clemson; 2021 Alabama; 2022 Baylor; 2023–2024 Washington; 2025 Florida; 2026 Notre Dame.

14 different programs in 25 years — only Miami (2002–2003), USC (2004–2006), TCU (2015–2016), and Washington (2023–2024) managed back-to-back.

Rung in once

27 programs have held the belt on exactly one New Year’s Day: Arkansas State, BYU, Carlisle, Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, Colgate, Colorado, Cornell, Duke, Florida, Fordham, Georgia, Lafayette, Missouri, Northwestern, Olympic Club, and 11 more. For most of them it was the high-water mark of a reign that did not survive September.