The Rest of College Football

[WM Wolverine]

Sounds like a 'selection committee' is the most likely compromise for CFB's 4-team playoff. I can't see them doing much more than taking the top 3 teams most years and flipping the #4/#5 team in the polls when there is reason to question the #4 ranked team...

Supposedly they are talking about a '12-team event'; that is 6 bowl games and a NT game... Two more major bowls then there are now, one of those being the new Big XII/SEC bowl...

[THE_WIZARD_]

[Ghengis Jon]

When I become king I will declare all post season CFB games to be non-profit. That would effectively kill all the playoff nonsense and with only individual bowl games left, they would return to being (gasp!) sporting events for the sake of athletic enjoyment and reward.

[WingsFan]

[DennisT]

I'm speechless too.

[Tony G]

When I become king I will declare all post season CFB games to be non-profit. That would effectively kill all the playoff nonsense and with only individual bowl games left, they would return to being (gasp!) sporting events for the sake of athletic enjoyment and reward.

You going to close Vegas also for the bowl season?

[Ghengis Jon]

Hell no, let Vegas thrive. I'm just sick of the corruption and greed that has permeated CFB. Since money is at its root, take that factor away and all your left with is athletics. Cover participating school's expenses for staff, players and band.

Since the NCAA has finally decided to dance with the devil, are the 4 tie in bowls going to be renamed White, Black, Red and Pale?

[Hannibal]

IMHO this isn't the radical change that it is being made out to be, and that is a good thing. Selection committee is kind of hilarious though, since people have been complaining about polls for years and now the four teams will be selected with a tiny poll, conducted in secret, and subject to horse trading and all kinds of other corrupt bullshit. First time a 12-0 Bowling Green or Hawaii gets left out, we'll find out how resistant this system is to further change.

[WM Wolverine]

Like I said above, the selection committee will pretty much follow the polls (Harris, AP, Coaches) to the tee, every few years I can see them taking a #5 team in favor of the #4 if the circumstances dictate it...

More times than not the BCS get it right (among the top 4-6 teams) in determining who had the better seasons but sometimes you see teams lose a game or two it shouldn't and is better than some teams ranked higher. Biggest mistakes I see in the polls/rankings imo are undefeated teams that run the table in lousy conferences (WAC, MWC, Big East) and nearly as bad OOC schedules.

[JRB]

Once again, college football responds to public pressure over its postseason format by implementing a change that would have assuaged concerns...in the season just past. After all, we had a reasonably clear-cut top four at the end of last season--LSU, Alabama, and Oklahoma State would obviously have made a four-team playoff, and a committee likely would have picked between two teams that played in the regular season for the last spot(Oregon and Stanford).

In 2010, however, the regular season finished like this: Auburn, Oregon, and TCU finished undefeated and in the top three. The next four were once-beaten Stanford, once-beaten Wisconsin, once-beaten Ohio State, and once-beaten Michigan State. Wisconsin was the highest-ranked of the three Big Ten teams, but Michigan State beat them head-to-head. Stanford's only loss came at Oregon. Ohio State's only loss came at Wisconsin. Which of those four teams should have gone to a four-team playoff?

2009 was even trickier-- we had five unbeatens at the end of that regular season season(Alabama, Texas, Cincinnati, Boise State, and TCU), plus a once-beaten Florida team that was almost certainly better than at least two of the unbeatens, and might have been better than four of the five. And 2008? We would have had nine legitimate contenders for four spots-- Utah and Boise State were unbeaten, and Florida, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech, Penn State and USC all finished the regular season with one loss. A four-team playoff that year would have provoked howls of protest nationwide.

I am not arguing that difficulties make a playoff fundamentally illegitimate. I am arguing that no one should consider the four-team playoff as anything other than the first step toward a much more inclusive playoff format. If Charles Steger really believed the rhetoric he was spouting yesterday about four teams being just the right number, then he's kidding himself. The calls for expanding the new college football playoff will begin in earnest long before the first playoff game ever kicks off.

[*JD*]

It sounds like we'll still have to wait a minimum of 12 years for a more proper playoff.

[Jeff Buchanan]

It sounds like we'll still have to wait a minimum of 12 years for a more proper playoff.

Not sure about that ...... a lot of the discussion I'm hearing on radio talk (Arut/Torreta, Bill King, Marc Packer and the various interviewees they host) are all talking about an eventual 8 team post season play-off which could occur within the context of the current agreement, over time. You just add two more bowls and 4 more teams to the mix. As it stands now, there will be 6 bowls rotating. You just end rotation.

Toretta made an interesting observation on Tuesday. He noted that the only difference between the NFL (big business of football) and CFB is that there is no players association in the decision making mix. He suggested there should be. Arute added, and I think this is very important, there is no CMFIC (Chief Mother- F'er in Charge). The NFL has Goodell .... owners do what he tells them to do. CFB has no counterpart. The net result is a lot of powerful guys with egos making deals that are not necessarily in the best interests of CFB and definitely are not going to be in the best interests of the players as the money gets bigger (some say the 12 year TV deal for this is going to be worth 5 Billion).

When you're talking about this kind of money, the little guys, in this case the players, don't seem to matter. Toretta was advocating for a pool of money from the revenues being generated in the post season here that supports completion of college degrees for CFB players that (a) don't get drafted/signed or (b) those with short careers due to injury of other factors. he asked: "who is going to get all this additional revenue from teh play-off? Coaches and administrators primarily and on the backs of the players." Says Title IX and support for non-rev sports is a bogus response from officials who are asked this question. There's plenty of money for that he says ... just look at open records at public Us (I haven't but I don't think he makes a statement like this without having his people check it out).

I agree with him and like his idea. But its a pipe dream given this kind of cash pumping up the bank accounts of others in the game.

I agree with Hanni, there isn't significant change here in the 4 team arrangement except that it lays the ground work for expansion. I'm not opposed to a selection committee .... yet .... let's see how it works out. In the years Jason mentions there is a lot of room for debate and I'm not at all convinced secret meetings are the way to sort those kind of situations, which are going to happen, out. There is nothing better than public accountability and if comes down to making hard decisions, we're not going to get it.

[Wild Hoss]

In the years Jason mentions there is a lot of room for debate and I'm not at all convinced secret meetings are the way to sort those kind of situations, which are going to happen, out. There is nothing better than public accountability and if comes down to making hard decisions, we're not going to get it.

This.

The scenario we see here is, IMO, one step forward and one step back. We have taken a long-overdue step forward toward a playoff- which is tremendous, as I am not I expected to see this happen for years- but have done so in a means which ensures it will shrouded in the same controversy and claims of bias and corruption that a playoff was supposed to quell. Its one thing to have a selection committee for 64 basketball teams...to have one for four football teams is quite another.

I'd be real curious to hear the background discussions that were in play here, leading to this decision in lieu of simply utilizing the BCS formula expanded to four instead of just two.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'd be real curious to hear the background discussions that were in play here, leading to this decision in lieu of simply utilizing the BCS formula expanded to four instead of just two.

I'm going to make a guess ........

The selection committee (as bad as you and I agree this potentially is) was the common ground between Delaney and Slive who had a major disagreement over the issue of the requirement for play-off teams to be Conference Championship Game winners.

Clearly, Delaney (leading the charge with a posse of lesser conference commissioners) has been trying to prevent any chance of an all-SEC play-off while Slive would love that to happen. IMO, there is a strong likelihood that it could happen and quite a lot. Since there is not yet agreement on revenue sharing/distribution, this is a big deal.

I would bet there is a brokered deal here. Delaney agrees to the selection committee but their will be specific provisions that will not be made public yet and possibly never that prohibits more than two teams from any one conference participating in the play-off.

What will happen then, over time, and to make it "fair" that the post season will have an eight team play-off which will then eliminate the two team restriction of the current 4 team plan. There is probably more details to this that have to to do with the selection process but I cannot imagine these fine gentlemen leaving this meeting not having some kind of agreement in principle on the sticky issues of selection and revenue sharing.

[THE_WIZARD_]

OK...step in the right direction? For who? The SEC...that's who. I guarantee you guys that a situation like the following will occur and all hell will break loose. Say Oklahoma, USC, Alabama and Michigan win their conferences...but the runner-up in the SEC is ranked very high...higher than one of the aforementioed conference champs...who goes? Will they slight Oklahoma...since they didn't have to play a CCG (assuming the B12 is still at 10 teams)...who do you leave out? There will be forces on this so-called "selection committee" that will push for the 4 best...conferences be damned. I just don't see how you can deny a team who wins a major conference AQ status into the "mini-dance" (and that is what this is...a mini version of March Madness but on AQ for conf champs).

Save this post. I think this is going to create more controversey...not less...and it is in stone until 2025.