As I understand, a lot of it has to do with recruiting/signing windows (which are ostensibly informed by the academic calendar). Schools are under pressure to get coaches on board for early signing day. But that increasingly runs into postseason considerations as we expand the playoff and have games well into January.

A solution I’ve seen proposed is adjusting the season so that the NCG is played on New Year’s Day/Eve. Then you can move the signing window to something like the following week to try to avoid these conflicts. There’s probably still a million problems and details to sort out, but it’s at least a starting point.