The College Football Playoff announced Thursday it will expand to a 12-team event starting in 2024, completing an 18-month process that was fraught with delays and disagreements.
The announcement came a day after the Rose Bowl agreed to amend its contract for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, which was the last hurdle CFP officials needed cleared to triple the size of what is now a four-team format.
“I never gave up,” CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock said.
The first round of the playoff in 2024 will take place on campus sites matching teams seeded 5-12 the week ending Saturday, Dec. 21. Exact dates are still to be determined.
The quarterfinals and semifinals will be played in the bowls that have been rotating as hosts of the semifinals in the current format: Rose, Sugar, Orange, Peach, Cotton and Fiesta.
“I want to re-emphasize that all the bowls stepped up, all six,” Hancock said. “And there’s no secret that we were down to the final minutes of the fourth quarter. And there was no overtime. And if we hadn’t reached an agreement, there’s no question in my mind that we would have continued the four-ream playoff through the ‘2024 and ’25 seasons. But we’re here to celebrate the fact that we did reach an agreement.”
The championship game for the 2024 season will be played Jan. 20, 2025, in Atlanta. The title game the next year will be played Jan. 19, 2026, in Miami Gardens, Florida. Both are more than a week later than the current title game timing.
Expansion is expected to produce about $450 million in additional gross revenue for the conferences and schools that participate. The College Football Playoff’s 12-year contract with ESPN runs through the 2025-26 season.
The plan to expand the playoff was unveiled in June 2021, but conference commissioners who manage the CFP could not come to the unanimous consensus needed to push the proposal forward. Expansion for the 2024 season was pronounced dead back in February.
University presidents and chancellors who oversee the CFP stepped in and revived the process over the summer. They approved the original plan for use by 2026, and threw it back to the commissioners, directing them to try to expand by 2024, if possible.
No longer haggling over the format, the commissioners needed to work through when and where the games would be played and whether bowl partners and championship game hosts cities could accommodate a change in schedule for 2024 and 2025.
The Rose Bowl issue was the last to be settled, as organizers for the 120-year-old bowl game were hoping to get some assurances from the CFP that they would keep their valuable New Year’s Day time when new contracts go into effect in 2026.
CFP officials balked. Facing the possibility of being painted as an obstructionist and potentially being shut out of the expanded playoff in the long term, the Rose Bowl agreed to move forward in good faith.
“It’s our intent to keep the Rose Bowl game on Jan. 1,” said Laura Farber, chairwoman of the Rose Bowl Management Committee. “But we’ll remain flexible in scheduling as needed.”
MICHIGAN: Standout defensive lineman Mazi Smith has been charged with carrying a concealed weapon, nearly two months after a traffic stop.
The felony charge was filed Wednesday in an Ann Arbor court. Smith, a 21-year-old senior and team co-captain from Grand Rapids, Michigan, had four tackles and one assist against Indiana on Oct. 8, the day after the incident.
No. 2 Michigan, which is expected to make the four-team College Football Playoff field for a second straight year, is playing Purdue in Indianapolis on Saturday for the Big Ten championship.
Smith will continue to participate with the team, Athletic Director Warde Manuel said.
“Mazi was honest, forthcoming and cooperative from the very beginning and is a tremendous young man. He is not and never has been considered a threat to the university or community,” Manuel said.
Coach Jim Harbaugh said he’s confident that a “fair and just resolution is forthcoming.”
WOFFORD: Wofford has promoted interim coach Shawn Watson to the full-time job leading the FCS program.
Watson came to the school as assistant head coach and offensive coordinator last January, then was named interim after the Terriers let go of Coach Josh Conklin after five games and the team on a 15-game losing streak.
Watson led Wofford to a 3-3 mark the rest of the way.
NEBRASKA: Marcus Satterfield will join new coach Matt Rhule’s staff as offensive coordinator after serving in the same role at South Carolina for two seasons.
Rhule announced the hirings of five on-field assistants and a strength coach. He was introduced as the Cornhuskers’ coach on Monday.
The other on-field assistants will be E.J. Barthel, running backs; Evan Cooper, secondary; Ed Foley, special teams coordinator; and Terrance Knighton, defensive line. Corey Campbell is the strength coach.
FLORIDA: Backup quarterback Jalen Kitna was expected to be released from jail on $80,000 bond, a day after he was arrested on five child pornography charges that police said included images of a prepubescent girl having intercourse with an adult man.
Judge Meshon Rawls set the bond and as conditions for Kitna’s release ordered him not to have any unsupervised contact with minors and not to have any internet access.
Kitna sobbed into his hands when his parents, including former NFL quarterback Jon Kitna, address the court during a 75-minute appearance. Jalen Kitna was at the Alachua County Jail and on a closed-circuit feed when Jon and Jennifer Kitna stepped to a podium in the courtroom and promised they would supervise their 19-year-old son back home in Burleson, Texas.
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