If they went to 8 games the first round would pretty much have to be right after the season, and before Christmas. They cannot push into January for few reasons.
Another problem with expanding to 8 is that it diminishes the value of regular season games and therefore their importance (and level of interest). Currently every year there are some defacto regular season games (or in some cases Conference Championship games) that are essentially a playoff game. The loser is done. Think Michigan-OSU, Georgia-Alabama (sort of), OU-West Virginia or Washington-Washington State this year as an example. With the exception of Alabama (in regardless) and Washington (who had no chance to start with) the loser of each of these regular season games knew their playoff chances were over if they lost and there was a huge level of interest in the games. Expand to 8 teams and that may not be the case anymore.
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