The 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship game is being held on Jan. 20 this year — the latest a national champion has been crowned in the CFP era.

Traditionally, the championship game is played during the first or second week in January but with the adoption of the 12-team playoff model, the schedule had to be shifted. With the new structure in place, the current CFP schedule now overlaps with the NFL’s as well.

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Joel Klatt shared his thoughts on college football having to share the spotlight with the NFL, which concluded its divisional round over the weekend. Klatt can’t help but feel that the biggest game of the college football season is taking a backseat to its professional counterpart.

“This is supposed to be the pinnacle of our sport,” Klatt’s tweet read. “The destination for every player, coach, and fan, yet somebody decided that playing the National Championship on a Monday night deep into the NFL playoffs was a good idea.

“The mismanagement of CFB has been egregious.”

Klatt suggested that the national championship be played on Jan. 1, instead. Traditionally, New Year’s Day has always been a day that heavily features some of the top bowl games in college football each season.

“Every year…OUR DAY…make it special,” he wrote.”

This year, the College Football Playoff schedule featued a quarterfinal double-header on both Jan. 1 and Jan. 2. New Year’s Day saw the Rose Bowl between Ohio State and Oregon, as well as the Peach Bowl between Texas and Arizona State. The other two playoff games, the Fiesta Bowl and Sugar Bowl, were played on Dec. 31 and Jan. 2, respectively.

Over two weeks later, however, and there’s more college football to be played as Notre Dame and Ohio State puts a ribbon on the 2024 college football season on Monday night.

As the 12-team playoff format becomes the new norm, the amount of playoff games across the first round and until the national championship take roughly a month to finish. To put the title game at exactly Jan. 1 would force college football to begin earlier in the year.

With rumors about potentially expanding the playoffs futher to a 14 or 16-team model also being discussed, the national championship game could potentially get pushed back even farther.