Remember when the College Football Playoff was going to make playoff games on New Year's Eve a new college football tradition? Well, that tradition lasted only one year.
The CFP has announced that it will now shift its schedule in the future to limit semi-final games to Saturdays, and holidays.
"We had healthy discussions with a lot of people who love college football and we concluded that making these changes would be the right thing to do for our fans." said Hancock in a release.
"We tried to do something special with New Year's Eve, even when it fell on a weekday. But after studying this to see if it worked, we think we can do better. These adjustments will allow more people to experience the games they enjoy so much. For these four years, our previous call is reversed."
It's amazing how quickly a major decline in television rankings (the ratings for the 2015 semis dropped 40% compared to 2014) can change your mind.
The changes will only affect the CFP schedules in years five, six, 11 and 12 of its current rotation, and although the plan is to get the semis off of weekdays, there is still one year they'll come on a weekday. That's in Dec. 31, 2021, which will fall on a Friday. The difference is, since it's a Friday, it's deemed a federal holiday.
State-sanctioned, three-day weekends are the best kind of three-day weekends.
Here's an updated CFP schedule following the new changes.
2016-17 Saturday, Dec. 31 Fiesta and Peach
2017-18 Monday, Jan. 1 Rose and Sugar
2018-19 Saturday, Dec. 29 Cotton and Orange
2019-20 Saturday, Dec. 28 Fiesta and Peach
2020-21 Friday, Jan. 1 Rose and Sugar
2021-22 Friday, Dec. 31 Orange and Bowl TBD
2022-23 Saturday, Dec. 31 Bowls TBD
2023-24 Monday, Jan. 1 Rose and Sugar
2024-25 Saturday, Dec. 28 Orange and Bowl TBD
2025-26 Saturday, Dec. 27 Bowls TBD
