{"id":452604,"date":"2026-02-06T14:14:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T14:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/452604\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T14:14:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T14:14:29","slug":"texas-ad-chris-del-conte-calls-for-an-end-to-conference-championship-games-lets-start-the-playoffs-that-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/452604\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas AD Chris Del Conte calls for an end to conference championship games: ‘Let’s start the playoffs that week’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas<\/a> Athletic Director Chris Del Conte is the latest figurehead to call for an end to conference championship games. This comes after the\u00a0College Football Playoff\u00a0announced the dates and bowl sites for the Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and Championship Game in the 2026 CFP in a release on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The 2026 national quarterfinals will kick off on Wednesday, Dec. 30, with the\u00a0Fiesta Bowl, while the\u00a0Cotton Bowl,\u00a0Peach Bowl\u00a0and\u00a0Rose Bowl\u00a0will be held two days later on Friday, Jan. 1, 2027. The national semifinals will then follow two weeks after that, beginning with the\u00a0Orange Bowl\u00a0set for Thursday, Jan. 14 and the\u00a0Sugar Bowl\u00a0set for Friday, Jan. 15. The\u00a02027 CFP National Championship Game\u00a0will follow 10 days later on Monday, Jan. 25, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.<\/p>\n

Instead of the Playoff starting and ending later, Del Conte is calling for the Playoff to start in early Dec., in place of Conference Championship games. This would allow the Playoff to end earlier, aligning with school schedules and the Transfer Portal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m also in favor \u2014 why have a conference championship game? Let\u2019s start the playoffs that week, right?\u201d Del Conte said to OrangeBloods\u2019 Anwar Richardson<\/a>. \u201cStart the playoffs that week, and let\u2019s play every single week, and the semifinals are played on New Year\u2019s Day, which IS college football, and the national championship a week later. That\u2019s what I\u2019d like to see, but I\u2019m one vote. But this is where we need to get to.\u201d<\/p>\n

This past season, the Semifinals were played on Jan. 8. Next season, the Semifinals were pushed back even further to Jan. 14. This means that there will now be a 10-day gap between the Semifinals and the National Championship Game, with the season extending nearly into February.<\/p>\n

Along with campaigning for the games to be played earlier, Del Conte stated that the committee \u2018has to expand\u2019 the Playoff. This past season, Texas was the third team out of the Playoff, behind Notre Dame<\/a> and BYU<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to preserve an old system of bowl games,\u201d Del Conte continued. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to preserve this whole idea of what college football was 30 years ago, 10 years ago, four years ago. Evolution is coming, and I firmly believe that the way we do the playoff is coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to expand that playoff. We have to have more opportunities for teams. At the same time, we\u2019ve got to honor strength in the regular season. But if that does not happen, we are going to be forced into a position: don\u2019t play anybody, let\u2019s give it a go and see what happens at the end to get in the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte is the latest figurehead to call for an end to conference championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[212038,399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-452604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-chris-del-conte","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}