Long January

CFP Quarterfinal Dec 30

CFP Title game Jan 25

I’m throwing up https://t.co/UZ25AOnJuN

— Josh Pate (@JoshPateCFB) February 3, 2026

Rose Bowl elected to keep its January 1 date and not be a semi final game

Yeah I guess it is cool the Rose Bowl dorks want to keep their Jan 1 traditional date, meaning it will never host a semi again unless the season is backed up. A largely irrelevant gesture, but good for them?

ESPN/ABC convinced their sponsors to build another week into the schedule for hype-selling Dr. Pepper, Nissan, Burger King and whatever other affiliated BS products these conglomerates want you to inundate you with.

Neat.

2029 CFP will use the NFL schedule and play the National Championship game the day after the Super Bowl.

Rose Bowl benefits very little from a semifinal.

Psycho Bunny said:

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2028 CFP will use the NFL schedule and play the National Championship game the day after the Super Bowl.

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You may want to get yourself a new calendar

I assume Winter basketball ratings are to blame for dragging out football as long as possible.

BMX Bandit said:

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Psycho Bunny said:

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2028 CFP will use the NFL schedule and play the National Championship game the day after the Super Bowl.

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You may want to get yourself a new calendar

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I'll blame having fat fingers.

I truly hope there are some serious obstacles causing all these terrible decisions. Painfully slow, completely out of rhythm, borderline boring timeline on the CFP. Virtually impossible to do any worse.

LesterHaze said:

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I truly hope there are some serious obstacles causing all these terrible decisions. Painfully slow, completely out of rhythm, borderline boring timeline on the CFP. Virtually impossible to do any worse.

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Yep

Talk about casual fans losing interest . They will completely forget about the playoffs during the middle stretch of nothingness and focus solely on the nfl

Can the decision makers in cfb f things up any more?

Seems hard to do but I'm sure they will find more ways to do it

Maybe unpopular opinion, but the Rose Bowl can Sucks. The hype is not worth it, just dont see it. The are the sips of bowl games.

MD1993 said:

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Maybe unpopular opinion, but the Rose Bowl can Sucks. The hype is not worth it, just dont see it. The are the sips of bowl games.

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Rose Bowl use to mean something back in the day, when it was just Pac 12 vs Big 10. Now it just another bowl game. I remember the Cotton bowl was the first bowl game of the New Year. Money and greed has ruined College Football.

If we expand the playoffs to 36, we may be able to stretch the playoffs into February to fill the gap between the Big Game and the combine coverage.

****ing morons!!!

at this rate, the natty game will be during Spring Break before we know it <ROLLEYES> Shorten the season to 11 regular season games. The post-season should conclude near the weekend after NYD - sometime around January 10.

Seriously, I almost wish we would go back to the old BCS thing with conference champion bowl tie-ins and then do a "plus 1" for the natty

not it only will affect a few teams but those players who want to enter the portal/ enroll in Spring at new school

Dont most schools start new semester around semifinals and definitely before final championship game

Waiting for the player to lose in the quartefinals and tranfer portal out and sign and enroll at new school for semifinal game for that school and sue to play in it and win the TRO

Football National Championship on the same day as the Basketball National Championship. Make it happen NCAA. Let there be chaos.

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Dont most schools start new semester around semifinals and definitely before final championship game

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every school will make an exception to let players enroll late. its already happened several places

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Waiting for the player to lose in the quartefinals and tranfer portal out and sign and enroll at new school for semifinal game for that school and sue to play in it and win the TRO

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thats one thing that won't happen

The CFP scheduled these playoff dates to avoid competition with NFL games. The NFL's 2026-27 regular season will conclude the weekend of 1/9-1/10. Then, the Wild Card Round will be from 1/16-1/18 and conclude with a Monday Night Wildcard playoff game on 1/18/27. CFB scheduled the Fiesta Bowl on 12/30 presumably because the NFL will schedule their final Week 17 Thursday night game on 12/31.

The first 10 CFP National Championship Games were played between 1/7 to 1/13. 9 of those 10 games were played on the Monday before MLK Day, and the only exception was the 2019 National Championship Game played on 1/7/19, two weeks before MLK Day. But the playoff expansion pushed back the dates of the last two National Championship Games to 1/20/25 and 1/19/26. It will be a week later because of the Monday Night Wildcard Playoff game. That's why I think the NFL should eliminate the Monday Night Wildcard playoff game. Without the Monday Night Wildcard playoff game, the semifinals could have been scheduled on 1/7-1/8, and the CFP National Championship Game could have been scheduled on 1/18/25, MLK Day.

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the semifinals could have been scheduled on 1/7-1/8

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That's a Thursday and Friday. The Monday night NFL playoff game didn't prevent anything

BMX Bandit said:

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the semifinals could have been scheduled on 1/7-1/8

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That's a Thursday and Friday. The Monday night NFL playoff game didn't prevent anything

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No, but the Monday Night playoff game prevented the National Championship Game from being played on 1/18. If the semifinals were scheduled for 1/7-1/8, there would be an unbalanced gap between rounds. There would only be 7 or 8 days from the quarterfinals on 12/30 or 1/1, but 17 or 18 days from the National Championship Game on 1/25. That's why CFB scheduled the semifinals for 1/14-1/15.

That doesn't explain the two weeks between quarters and semis.

BMX Bandit said:

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That doesn't explain the two weeks between quarters and semis.

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If the semifinals were scheduled for 1/7-1/8, there would be an unbalanced gap between rounds. There would only be 7 or 8 days from the quarterfinals on 12/30 or 1/1, but 17 or 18 days from the National Championship Game on 1/25. That's why CFB scheduled the semifinals for 1/14-1/15.

There's already an unbalanced gap

Two weeks between those rounds is completely stupid. Fix your programming

BMX Bandit said:

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There's already an unbalanced gap

Two weeks between those rounds is completely stupid. Fix your programming

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First Round: 12/18-12/19
Quarterfinals: 12/30 or 1/1, 12 or 13 days from the first round
Semifinals, 1/14-1/15, 14 or 15 days from the quarterfinals
Championship Game: 1/25, 10 or 11 days from the semifinals.

Scheduling the semifinals on 1/14-1/15 results in 14 or 15 days from the quarterfinals and 10 or 11 days from the Championship Game. That is more balanced gap than 7 or 8 days from the quarterfinals and 17 or 18 days from the National Championship Game on 1/25.

Scheduling the semifinals on 1/7-1/8 and the CFP National Championship Game on 1/18 would have been much better, but the CFP National Championship Game on 1/18 would conflict with the NFL Monday Night Wildcard playoff game.

one safe place said:

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Slow and tedious process. Way too long from the end of the season and too much time between playoff games. Start the process a week after then end of the season and play every week until it is over.

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This would be my solution:

1. Play the first round on campus the second weekend of December, the week after the conference championship games. It's a great television weekend because the NFL can't play that Saturday. The NCAA will have to move the annual Army-Navy game from its traditional date on the second Saturday of December, but I think that can be solved.

2. Play the next round on campus (so the top 4 seeds get a home game) on the 3rd weekend of December.

3. Play the semi-finals on New Year's Day, the way it was in the 4-team playoff. I would lock them into the Rose Bowl in the afternoon and the Sugar Bowl in the evening, but you could rotate them.

4. Play the championship game on the second Monday of January. If there is a Monday Night NFL Wild Card Playoff game that day, play the championship game on the second Friday of January.