College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock announced changes to how the semifinal games will be scheduled in the future – solving one problem, but falling short of fixing it properly.
In 2015, the College Football Playoff blew it. They scheduled the two national semifinal games on New Year’s Eve, and ratings plummeted as a result of that scheduling derp.
Fans and the media openly criticized the scheduling decision, and CFB Playoff executive director Bill Hancock stood firm on the decision to make New Year’s Eve the playoff tradition. That is, until recently when out of the blue, Hancock came out in favor of a schedule change.
Hancock and the committee admitted they were wrong (a shocker by any stretch) and announced today that the National Semifinal games would be moved from New Year’s Eve scheduling. Unfortunately, the solution fell short of a real fix.
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The new scheduling dictates that all semifinals games will now be played on Saturdays or holidays, affecting the schedule in years 2018, 2019, 2024 and 2025.
“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 via press 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.”
We should probably be thankful that fans were listened to at all.
Here are the dates of the future semifinals (asterisks indicate years when the schedule has been changed):
2016-17 Saturday, December 31 Fiesta and Peach
2017-18 Monday, January 1 Rose and Sugar
*2018-19 Saturday, December 29 Cotton and Orange
*2019-20 Saturday, December 28 Fiesta and Peach
2020-21 Friday, January 1 Rose and Sugar
2021-22 Friday, December 31 Orange and Bowl TBD
2022-23 Saturday, December 31 Bowls TBD
2023-24 Monday, January 1 Rose and Sugar
*2024-25 Saturday, December 28 Orange and Bowl TBD
*2025-26 Saturday, December 27 Bowls TBD
Bill, in case you haven’t been paying attention to college football for the last say, ohhhh…40 or 50 years…New Year’s Day is the day which college football fans strap on the bag, grab the remote and prepare themselves for a feast of food, drink, nursing hangovers and college football from sunup to sundown.
Hancock and the committee have made these semifinal games the pinnacle of the season (outside of the championship game), yet they have games falling on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays; the the 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st and 1st – shifting them around like they were coach passengers being bumped on a budget airline.
How hard would it be to simply state that the two semifinal games – whichever bowls they happen to be that year – will be played in the two prime time New Year’s Day slots? The College Football Playoff would be embarking on a new (I know this is probably a weird word for them) tradition.
Fans could plan on yearly gatherings, television partners could easily schedule advertising, schools could make early travel plans and New Year’s Day would become one of the biggest football days of the year…
Every. Single. Year.
Perish the thought, right?
You have to wonder what’s going through the heads of these suits when they start discussing how these games are scheduled. The road map is there, and has been for decades. They need to just use it and stop trying to chop their way through the thicket.
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Thanks for the effort, Bill. I’m sure those who make grand plans for New Year’s Eve are grateful for the shift, but you really haven’t improved the situation much. How about we give it the old college try again…same time, next year?