Ending Your Football Season Early?
With the2024 College Football Playoffs, four of the 12 best teams will end their seasons the third weekend of December, before Christmas, instead in a bowl game closer to or on New Year's Day
Jim Valvano, the late great NC State Wolfpack basketball coach told me and others many times it is easier to make the right choice with if you have more than just two selections. Does that make sense? There’s a 50 percent chance of getting it right with two choices and the odds go down when more choices are available. With the College Football Playoffs in 2024, we’ll see!
College Football Playoffs or a Late January Bowl Game?
About this date next year, the third full weekend of December 2024, eight college football teams will be playing first round games in the College Football Playoff. One game is scheduled for Friday, December 20 and three games are set for Saturday, December 21.
These games will be played in the home stadiums of (or a stadium of choice by) the higher seeded teams, numbers five through eight of the 12 CFP teams selected. Those seeded nine through 12 will be the visitors.
The 2024 CFP will have as much or more fanfare, disappointment, excitement, and stupid-speak as this year’s selection of four teams has been. There’s more room for error in selecting the 12, leaving out some deserving squads. and assigning home field advantage than just choosing four teams this year. (Maybe Valvano was right, maybe he wasn’t.)
If you recall, undefeated Atlantic Coast Conference champion Florida State was passed over for one loss programs Alabama of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and Texas of the Big XII league. Both teams were their respective conference champs which, between those two teams, can’t happen in 2024 because Texas joins the SEC in 2024. Oklahoma, where the winds go sweeping across the plains, also defects to the SEC next year.
Still though, the SEC hierarchy will say, maybe demand, that at least three or four of their members make the 12-team field. Same will be true of the Big 10 with UCLA, Southern Cal, Oregon, and Washington moving to that conference next season. The ACC will lobby for at least two of it’s 17 members, and Notre Dame will chime in for a spot no matter the Irish record because, well, they are Notre Dame.
Let’s get back to that December 20 and 21 opening games in which four of the supposedly best teams in college football will end their season instead of playing in a bowl game closer to New Year’s Day 2025.
Just thinking back to the Florida State fiasco where the Committee kicked out the Seminoles because of quarterback injury. What if teams are chosen and a few days later the heart and soul of those teams refuse to play to prepare for the NFL draft or due to a drop in NIL money. Can the Committee then change its mind. Hah!
This year there are 23 of the 41 total bowl games played from December 26 through January 1. Four of those will be used next season for the second round—quarterfinals, if you will—Tuesday, December 31 and Wednesday, January 1, and two more , over a week later, will be used for the semifinals.
The finals in January 2025, will be played in a stadium without a bowl name except for it’s use in the quarterfinals. That would be Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, home of the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
So, before Christmas, four of the top teams, will go away with the luster of their season shot into oblivion. The players of the losing teams will have been pumped up to be in the playoffs. And then experience letdown as the first round winners move on and get glorified. The losers will end their seasons with a whimper and no one—that’s right, no one, except maybe Chris Fowler—a week later and beyond will remember who were the first four to be eliminated.
With the first four games played in the higher seeded—numbers five through eight versus numbers nine through 12—teams stadiums, just another home game but with a little more fanfare, there will be debate about those selected not only in the total 12 teams, and not only in the last four of the 12, but being picked in the fifth through eighth position for home field advantage.
Just for giggles and grins, let’s say in the possible eighth and ninth seeds are 10-2 Ohio State with losses to Michigan and Washington during the regular season, and 12-1 NC State with a loss to ACC champ Florida State in the ACC title game (Wolfpack athletics supporters can only hope). Where do you think the CFP committee would want to showcase the game, Columbus or Raleigh?
This year, the Committee screwed up because of pressure from the SEC to have at least one team in the playoffs, by-passing an undefeated league champ to a showcase name in college football that had one loss. Next year’s selections will not be any easier with all the twists and turns or who’s in and who’s out and which teams get to play home games in round one.
Bottom line, four teams in the playoffs will end their seasons before Christmas shopping is completed and before Hannukah begins, December 25, 2024. We might remember who was tossed aside after the quarterfinals because of the bowl games associated with the December 31-January 1 play dates, but only the fans of the first round losers will remember the good season those teams had. Bummer.
If you were a college football player and had to choose between a December 20 or 21 first round playoff game that seems like another regular season game or playing in a season ending bowl game in late December or early January, which scenario would you choose in which to lose the game? You have just two choices. Make the right one!
Here are the 2024 and 2025 College Football Playoff Schedules:
2024 College Football Playoff schedule
First round (campus sites)
Dec. 20, 2024 (Friday): One game (evening)
Dec. 21, 2024 (Saturday): Three games (early afternoon, late afternoon and evening)
Quarterfinals
Dec. 31, 2024 (Tuesday): Fiesta Bowl, Glendale, Ariz. (evening)
Jan. 1, 2025 (Wednesday): Peach Bowl, Atlanta (early afternoon); Rose Bowl, Pasadena, Calif. (late afternoon); Sugar Bowl, New Orleans (evening)
Semifinals
Jan. 9, 2025 (Thursday): Orange Bowl, Miami Gardens, Fla. (evening)
Jan. 10, 2025 (Friday): Cotton Bowl, Arlington, Tex. (evening)
CFP championship game
Jan. 20, 2025 (Monday): Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta
2025 College Football Playoff schedule
First round (campus sites)
Dec. 19, 2025 (Friday): One game (evening)
Dec. 20, 2025 (Saturday): Three games (early afternoon, late afternoon and evening)
Quarterfinals
Dec. 31, 2025 (Wednesday): Cotton Bowl, Arlington, Tex. (evening)
Jan. 1, 2026 (Thursday): Orange Bowl, Miami Gardens, Fla. (early afternoon); Rose Bowl, Pasadena, Calif. (late afternoon); Sugar Bowl, New Orleans (evening)
Semifinals
Jan. 8, 2026 (Thursday): Fiesta Bowl, Glendale, Ariz. (evening)
Jan. 9, 2026 (Friday): Peach Bowl, Atlanta (evening)
CFP championship game
Jan. 19, 2026 (Monday): Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Fla.