CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock to step down in 2025 - ESPN

College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock will retire when his contract expires Feb. 1, 2025, the CFP announced following a routine June meeting in Half Moon Bay, California, on Wednesday.

Hancock, 72, will remain in his current position through the 2023-2024 season. He'll then take on a consultant role to the new executive director when the CFP expands from the current four-team playoff to the new 12-team format for the 2024-25 season.

Hancock was named executive director of the CFP a few months after the event was created in 2012. According to the CFP, he was the only employee at the time. The commissioners of the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick «directed him to finalize the details of a media rights agreement, negotiate agreements with bowl games and championship-game host cities, build a staff, find office space, contact members to serve on the selection committee, and draft protocol and procedures for the committee to use,» according to the release.

«My time at the CFP has been a dream come true,» Hancock said in a prepared statement. «I cherish what I do and the folks I get to work with. And I do love college football.»

Hancock said a plan had been established for him to notify the CFP's board of managers a year in advance if he decided to step aside so they had ample time to find and transition to the next executive director.

«Everyone who is blessed to work with Bill knows he is a highly skilled administrator, strong leader and truly good person,» said Mississippi State president Mark E. Keenum, the chair of the CFP board of managers, in a prepared statement. «He's a legend in college sports.»

«Bill Hancock has led the highest level of postseason college football