Bruce Feldman Is Skeptical the College Football Playoff Would Be Pushed Back

On Friday, we mentioned that Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said that the conferences had been discussing the idea of pushing back the College Football Playoff. Today on Big Noon Kickoff on FOX, college football insider Bruce Feldman expressed skepticism that pushing back the playoffs would be feasible:

Feldman said that college football power brokers are "all over the map" on whether the calendar could or should be shifted away from having the semifinals on New Year's Day. He said there are very few viable TV windows for the semis after January 1st because of NFL playoffs, which will have at least two and possibly four extra games as the postseason is expanded.

Feldman pointed out that college football has no centralized power structure. "The CFP has all sorts of tentacles and is going in all sorts of different directions," Feldman said. "It's a process that has never been very flexible. And now you're asking a process that has been entirely inflexible to make a lot of decisions on the fly."

The one part of this I disagree with is the lack of viable TV windows. It's true that NFL playoffs are going to eat up weekend windows after New Year's Day, but there will be a lot of weeknight real estate in January. If the Finals can be held on a weekday, why can't the semis?

Nonetheless, it's pretty clear that moving the CFP would be a decision of absolute last resort.