The College Football Playoff will expand to 12 teams, but it is still not sure when.

“They made progress, but they’re not finished,” Hancock said Thursday, referring to efforts to expand in time for the 2024 regular season. “It is true that time is not on our side, but we haven’t given ourselves a deadline.”

The CFP management committee, which includes the 10 FBS conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, met for nearly seven hours at the DFW airport Grand Hyatt on Thursday, their third in-person meeting since the presidents who oversee the CFP voted unanimously to expand the Playoff to 12 teams by 2026 at the latest.

Commissioners remained optimistic about getting the format put in place in time for 2024, though they listed off issues that they still need to resolve. Hancock said the two host sites for the Jan. 2025 and Jan. 2026 national championship games — Atlanta and Miami, respectively — are both able to move the date of the title game if the postseason calendar needs to be adjusted.

But several other pressing issues remain, from scheduling logistics to existing bowl contracts for the final two years of the current CFP contract, which runs through the 2025-26 season, to the revenue distribution model. Right now, each of the Power 5 leagues receives the same payout per year regardless of whether they have a team make the CFP or win the national championship.

“Every time you turn over one stone, you start tripping on other issues,” MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said. “It’s more challenging than I maybe would have imagined.”