Three ways to fix the College Football Playoff schedule

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The College Football Playoff announced the schedule for the 2026-27 version, and I still have some issues with how it is laid out.

Most teams, including Notre Dame, would have a three-week break before their first game, which is a long break along with giving players time to leave programs and enter the transfer portal. This past season multiple players decided to end their time with teams still playing for a title, diminishing depth as they look for their next playing destination.

I have a few ideas on how to fix the calendar, and here are three of them that make the most sense to me.

Play the games on Friday and Saturday

College football has traditionally been played on Saturday’s, and this hasn’t been often what the CFP has done. Sure, the first-round will keep with this tradition, but the following won’t and it’s just odd seeing these games not being played then. Ratings play a big part in this, as the CFP brass doesn’t want to go up against the NFL, but there is a solution for that as well.

Shorter time between games

The grind of the regular season is what makes college football so great, but having such a long layoff between games has never really made sense to me. It’s the exact reason why we’ve seen the majority of teams with a bye lose in the quarterfinals, the time between their last contest to this one is just too long.

Start it the games earlier in December finishing on Jan. 1

This coming season, Championship Weekend will be held on the first weekend of December, and if the CFP was to start the following Friday and Saturday, it really won’t be a negative for any of the teams. Most of them won’t be playing in that final weekend, and most of them that win will get a bye. Another option would be eliminating them, which would give the teams two weeks before starting up again.

Say they stay, playing the first-round the weekend of Dec. 11th, then the following weekend for the quarterfinals and finishing up with the semifinals on Dec. 18th and 19th would give the final two teams a two week break before playing the title game on Jan. 1st. That’s college football, not playing the final game towards the end of January.

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This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Three changes that makes sense to the CFP schedule

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