8/10/2019 College Football Playoff Griping

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College Football Playoff Griping

Using quantities for ourcollege football pickshelps our analysis stay objective andfree from human biases. This article is a rare departure from our norm, and a

moment for us to offer a completely subjective opinion on an issue of importance

affecting thecollege footballworld: the new College Football Playoff. Our concernis not with the idea of a having a college football playoff, but with howthe four

teams (out of 128 candidates) are selected.

The BCS PostmortemThe Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was instituted in 1998 with the sole

purpose of playing-off the two best college football teams to determine the National

Championship. The formula for selecting those two teams consisted of three equal

parts:

1) The USA Today Coaches Poll

2)

The Harris Interactive Poll

3)

The average of six computer rankingsOne of the most oft-cited complaints about the BCS was that computers should not

be picking the two best teams. The response to that charge should have been simple:

The Coaches Poll is comprised of current college football coaches (people, not

computers), and the Harris Interactive Poll is comprised of former college football

players, coaches, administrators and former college football media (again, all

people). That means that two-thirds of the BCS was purely human and not

computer-driven.

The Pendulum SwingsIn response to all the BCS vitriol, it was decided that the selection of the four

teams to play-off (not just two, as with the BCS)) would be decided by a selectioncommittee (all humans). That decision has been left to 13 individuals- all people

with human biases. We no longer have ANY objective component to the selection of

the four best teams; the process is entirely subjective. How is that an improvement?

Sure, most college football fans wanted to see a playoff, but were they hoping for the

most subjective way of determining the four best teams?

The SubjectsThe so-called Recusal Policy should be the sole focus of volumes of

criticism, so for this brief discussion, we focus on the individuals who have been

selected to be the Selection Committee. For this section, keep in mind the following:

Reportedly, CONFERENCES will receive an additional $6,000,000 each year foreach team it places in the College Football Playoff.Why then, would a sittingathletic director be allowed on this committee? No matter what the recusal policy,

his conference (and therefore, his school) stands to profit if ANY team from his

conference is selected as one of the privileged four. There are simply too many

conflicts of interest, yet 5 of the 13 members (38.46%) are athletic directors. With

former Nebraska head coach and athletic director Tom Osborne continuing to be

compensated by the University of Nebraska, he should be placed in the same

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8/10/2019 College Football Playoff Griping

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conflict-of-interest category. We can all be grateful to Lt. General Mike Gould for his

service to our country, but what on earth is he doing on a college football selection

committee? With former Secretary of State, former Stanford Provost, and current

Stanford professor Condoleezza Rice on the Committee, we get someone who is, at

once, unqualified to preside over any part of college football AND a person with a

conflict of interest. With just that simple portrait, 8 out of 13 members (61.54%) ofthe College Football Playoff Selection Committee have no business presiding over

teams whose schools and conferences (therefore, schools again) will receive

additional compensation for their participation in the College Football Playoff. It

might take some time, but we believe that college football fans will eventually

clamor for some un-conflicted, unbiased, objective quantitative (yes, computer-

related) components to this selection process.

CollegeFootballWinning.com