The proposed changes by the AFCA involve eliminating a fixture in college football in conference championship games.
The college football world is constantly evolving, or efforts are constantly being made to do so. Something that has seemed like a fixture of the sport over the last three decades is conference championship games. Those days seem numbered as The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) thinks their time is up. The AFCA is proposing four calendar changes to try and shorten the college football season to wrap up by the second Monday in January. Mainly, to eliminate conference title games and reduce bye weeks.
The efforts come out of concern of the CFP expansion and the timing of the transfer portal. There is already recent talk about college football coaches supporting a 24-team format. It’s not feasible to think of how that would go and end anywhere before February, so perhaps that solves that. They would look to eliminate conference games, which is the most significant proposal. They would reduce things down to one bye week per team. The Army-Navy game would preserve their exclusive window while still allowing more playoff games on that day. They’d look to reduce time between contests to a minimum of no fewer than six to get rid of rust shown in postseason matchups.
It all follows efforts by the NCAA Football Oversight Committee to move the start of the season to Week Zero for the 2027 season beyond.
For the student-athlete side, there’s an argument that this would aid things as a later season continues to create obstacles for players looking to join new programs with the current window running from Jan. 2 to Jan. 16. They claim that these changes align with the academic calendar more closely. Last season, there was a major lag between the Big Ten title game, the CFP quarterfinal, and the semifinals – almost a month and a half. This proposal seeks to tighten things up.
However, while coaches may have started to show support for a 24-team format, the AFCA at this time is only supporting expansion past 12 teams without endorsing a specific expansion number. There could also be a 16-team format. It’s hard to surmise a 24-team playoff ending in a timely manner, even with these changes. And something to consider is the revenue on New Years Day which has driven key viewership and dollars during the quarterfinals.
Now, the AFCA can only recommend things that intend to spark discourse, and can’t actually change things. But it speaks to a pulse check on college football, and that seems to be largely in favor of eliminating conference championship games. It’s not clear how that would fit now into an automatic qualifier format.
The expanded postseason is really stretching the limits on the traditional structure of college football, and it stands to potentially eliminate an important point in history in the conference championship games, with some games more than 30 years old.