THE LATEST: Cotton Bowl winner takes on Clemson

By foxsports
Published

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) The latest developments from the College Football Playoff national semifinal game between Alabama and Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl (all times local):

7:12 p.m.

Next for the winner of the Cotton Bowl will be a Jan. 11 matchup against Clemson in the national championship game in Arizona.

Michigan State has never played the Tigers. Alabama hasn't lost to them in more than a century.

Clemson won the first two games it played against Alabama - in 1904 and 1905. The Crimson Tide has won the last 12 games in the series, the last 34-10 in the 2008 regular-season opener in Atlanta.

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7:01 p.m.

Michigan State's men's basketball team has some prime seats for the College Football Playoff semifinal game at the Cotton Bowl - in the row closest to the field near the school's band.

After the Spartans lost their Big Ten basketball opener at Iowa on Tuesday night, they were told they were flying to Minnesota for a few days in advance of their next game Saturday against the Golden Gophers. But players got a surprise on the plane when they found out they were instead going to Texas to see the Spartans play Alabama in the Cotton Bowl.

Alabama's Nick Saban and Spartans basketball coach Tom Izzo each became assistant coaches at Michigan State in 1983 and then head coaches in East Lansing in 1995. They are longtime friends, as are Izzo and current Michigan State football coach Mark Dantonio.

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6:27 p.m.

The Cotton Bowl now will end closer to midnight - on the East Coast.

ESPN has exercised its option to push kickoff of the Cotton Bowl back 10 minutes. So kickoff is now set for 7:20 p.m. CT, or 8:20 p.m. ET.

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6:17 p.m.

With Alabama and Michigan State on the field warming up for the Cotton Bowl, fans filing into AT&T Stadium are getting to watch the Orange Bowl on the huge video boards that hang over the center of the field.

Fans for both teams are familiar with the $1.2 billion stadium that is home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys.

Alabama opened this season Sept. 5 with a 35-17 victory here over Wisconsin, another Big Ten team

Michigan State is spending the last day of 2015 where it spent the first. The Spartans beat Baylor 42-41 in the Cotton Bowl last New Year's Day.

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AP College Football website: http://collegefootball.ap.org