When College Football Playoff expands, plan is to play 1st-round games on 3rd Saturday in December

The schedule for the 12-team College Football Playoff may not be as disruptive as first feared.

Executive director Bill Hancock said Saturday that the plan is to play the first-round games (teams ranked 5-12) on the third Saturday in December, even if that means playing them at the same time as NFL regular-season games.

Three quarterfinals will be played in bowls on January 1, with the fourth played a day earlier or later, depending on the calendar. Where New Year’s Day falls will determine the date for the semifinals, but Hancock said the Playoff will have a minimum of a nine-day window before the semifinals.

That’s where the calendar will make things interesting: College Football Playoff officials don’t want to stage the semifinals in the same time slots as NFL playoff games.

The idea of avoiding that issue by moving the season forward to begin on the last weekend in August instead of Labor Day weekend has not gained much traction because it would mean college football would give up its ubiquity on Thanksgiving weekend.

“If you stage the conference championship games on Thanksgiving weekend,” Hancock said, “there would be only 11 games on the weekend instead of the 50 regular-season games we have now.”