Joel Klatt blasts ‘Egregious’ schedule for CFP National Championship Game

On By Littum

The 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship game between Ohio State and Notre Dame started on Monday, January 20, and took place 51 days after the last college football season ended for teams that did not qualify for a bowl game, and weeks after the season ended for even teams playing in bowl games.

With the new 12-team CFP format, the national championship game has been pushed back to the second half of January, competing with the NFL playoffs. Former Colorado football quarterback and college football analyst Joel Klatt is not a fan of this format, as he believes it takes away from the attention the sport should receive.

“This is supposed to be the pinnacle of our sport,” Klatt wrote on X. “The destination for every player, coach and fan … yet someone decided that playing the national championship on a Monday night deep in the NFL playoffs was a good idea…the mismanagement of the CFB has been egregious.”

Instead, Klatt believes that the game should be played on New Year’s Day.

“We should be playing the national championship on Jan. 1,” Klatt wrote in a separate post. “Every year … OUR DAY … make it special.”

Although the national championship game has been played after January 1st, even before the 12-team format was instituted, the current schedule runs quite far into January.

By the time the game is played, many players from other teams have already entered the transfer portal and left for other schools, and others have declared for the NFL Draft, moving on from the past season. For the two teams playing for the title, their season stretches several weeks longer.

Along with the particularity of the schedule for the teams that remain in contention, the national championship could be overshadowed by the NFL playoffs, which just finished the divisional round and experienced excellent viewership.

The officials who control the Common Fisheries Policy met for their annual meeting on Sunday, but made no changes to the current format. The committee has not ruled out “tweaking” the current format for 2025, per ESPNbut the commissioners had to agree unanimously to all possible changes.