Playing college football games on non-traditional weeknights is one of the expected possibilities when the College Football Playoff expands to 24 teams starting after the 2027 season.
With the CFP conference commissioners expected to approve playoff expansion soon, according to multiple reports, ironing out the details of the expanded bracket will take more work. One of the major issues to discuss is the media-rights deal with ESPN.
The larger CFP field will eliminate conference championship games, with the regular-season champion from the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and ACC earning automatic berths into the playoffs. Also getting an automatic berth will be the highest-ranked team among the champions from the Pac-12, Mountain West, MAC, Conference USA, American and Sun Belt.
The 24 playoff teams will be ranked, with the top eight earning a bye into the second round.
With conference championship games out of the way, the 16 teams participating in the first round will see action on the second week of December. Those eight winners and the eight teams receiving a bye will match up on the third week of December.
First- and second-round games will be played in the home stadiums of the higher-ranked team.
The quarterfinals and semifinals will continue to rotate among the Rose, Fiesta, Cotton, Sugar, Peach and Orange bowls. The quarterfinals will be played during New Year’s week with the semifinals played during the second week of January.
According to Yahoo Sports, weeknight CFP games are expected, and not just when New Year’s Day falls in the middle of the week. Some or all of the early-round games will be played during the week to avoid overlapping with late-season NFL games.
Left to decide is what happens to the 30-plus bowl games that have lost some luster with some top players opting out. There is already a reported plan of power conference teams that did not make the playoff field meeting up in standalone bowl games to complete their seasons.