{"id":745017,"date":"2026-02-11T15:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/745017\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T15:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:18:13","slug":"less-is-more-for-college-football-due-to-wait-between-cfp-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/745017\/","title":{"rendered":"Less is more for college football due to wait between CFP games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Feb. 11, 2026, 6:15 a.m. PT<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Despite all of the changes to college football over the past decade, it\u2019s surprising that the NCAA hasn\u2019t been able to find a more sensible scheduling format for the <a href=\"http:\/\/uclawire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/college\/ucla\/football\/2026\/01\/23\/college-football-playoff-keep-12-teams-2026-season\/88321991007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">College Football Playoff<\/a>. The long-winded postseason lacks momentum and the potential fixes aren\u2019t all that complex.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\"><a href=\"http:\/\/uclawire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ncaaf\/2026\/02\/05\/cfp-schedule-college-football-nfl\/88515835007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">USA TODAY Sports writer Matt Hayes<\/a> gave his two cents on the matter, suggesting a one week earlier start date to the season which would allow for a New Year\u2019s Day national championship game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\u201cThis season, the NFL \u2014 a financial goldmine of success and popularity \u2014 will play 13 playoff games in 30 days, finishing the annual joy ride Sunday with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/sports\/nfl?gnt-ste=usatoday\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Super Bowl LX<\/a>. Clean, neat, efficient,\u201d Hayes writes. \u201cNext season, College football \u2014 a financial whirlwind of the overwhelmed, stuck in a glass booth cash grab and frantically stabbing at anything that moves \u2014 will play 11 <a href=\"https:\/\/profile.usatoday.com\/newsletters\/path-to-playoff\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">College Football Playoff<\/a> games in 39 days. Dirty, messy, inefficient.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">These extended CFP breaks <a href=\"http:\/\/uclawire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/college\/ucla\/football\/2026\/01\/02\/ohio-state-football-falls-cfp-big-ten-suffers\/87984495007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">creates excuses for programs<\/a> and takes away from the drama that unfolds on the field, as well as just being annoying for the average fan who doesn\u2019t understand why the national title game was played on Monday, January 19th this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">20 years ago, the entire current college football landscape looked entirely different. Why not embrace the change and try to find the optimal way to have the season unfold?<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\u201cThe postseason is everything in all sports. It determines champions, it delivers drama, it\u2019s what television craves. It earns big, big dollars. Yet those in charge of college football can\u2019t stop mucking it up,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cThis has nothing to do with the number of teams in the CFP, it has everything to do with when the dang thing is played. That&#8217;s the most important piece to this puzzle going largely ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">We\u2019ll see how long it takes the NCAA to realize that shortening the length of the postseason will lead to more of a frenzy surrounding the sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 11, 2026, 6:15 a.m. PT Despite all of the changes to college football over the past decade,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[95878,7,106010,96358,96156,96027,95896,96154,96758,105666,95888,95883,97971,106215,97444,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-745017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-sstssportscollegeuclafootball","11":"tag-sstsnfootball","12":"tag-tagcollege-football-playoff","13":"tag-tagcollege-sports","14":"tag-tagnational-sports","15":"tag-tagncaa","16":"tag-tagncaa-big-ten-conference","17":"tag-tagnew-years-day","18":"tag-tagnfl","19":"tag-tagsports-news","20":"tag-tagsuper-bowl-60","21":"tag-tagucla-bruins","22":"tag-tagucla-bruins-football","23":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116052669556205622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}