At most schools, finals are the following week (they are at ‘Bama) so the first round of playoff cannot be held that weekend.

Assuming an 8-team playoff, it pushes the quarterfinal games into the third week of December. It’s a vey tight window, with hardly any practice time for the first round of playoff. I agree with Saban, the conferences will want to maximize their teams opportunities to advance and sacrifice the championship games to allow more practice time.