Condi Rice, Larry Scott in favor of keeping the CFP at just four teams
Want to expand the College football Playoff?
Well, you’ll have to convince CFP committee member Condoleeza Rice it’s the right thing to do.
Rice, along with Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, was a keynote speaker at the Stanford Graduate School of Business Sports Innovation Conference on Wednesday. Both were asked about possibly expanding the playoff and Rice towed the company line.
“I feel pretty strongly about four now because I thought that the rivalry weekend — that Saturday after Thanksgiving — almost felt like a play-in game,” said Rice, per ESPN’s Heather Dinich. “Now the Iron Bowl, Alabama has to beat Auburn. You could imagine the circumstances in another year where the Civil War, Oregon really has to beat Oregon State. There are questions whether they will.
“I agree that if it got much larger, I don’t think you would have that momentum coming out of the regular season, so it’s the best possible scenario.”
A lot of people would agree with Rice’s reasoning. We all want the rivalry games to mean something and with so few spots in the College Football Playoff, they do, especially in the SEC.
However, there’s still the argument that it’s ludicrous to have five power conferences and just four spots, but even Scott said he didn’t envision the playoff scenario changing, at least through the 12-year duration of the current contract, and he cited the drama the small field creates.
“I think we’re all lamenting regular-season college basketball not being more popular right now, at a time when March Madness has never been more popular,” Scott said. “To me, that’s a great example of the field being so big that the regular season doesn’t matter anymore.
“There’s something about that drama, that tension that makes it very special and keeps a lot of value in the regular season, which is good for all of our schools.”
Scott also mentioned the academic calendar as one of the reasons for the lack of expansion, and that did come into play during the national championship game when Ohio State was allowed more practice time because its students were still on a semester break while Oregon had returned to school the week leading up to the game.
What do you think? Is one season enough to make calls for a playoff change or do we need to let it play out for a few years and evaluate the process before making a real push for change?
My theory is that while yes, there were probably six teams that deserved to get into the playoff this season, the four teams that got in sure made for a fun run. I enjoy the exclusivity. I enjoy the idea that every game matters whether it’s early or late. If I had any gripe with the College Football Playoff, it’s the weekly rankings, which meant very little. The criteria for those rankings seemed to change weekly and when it came down to the final rankings — the ones that actually mattered — the protocol that had determined the standings in previous weeks was totally thrown out the window.
But those aren’t going away because they generate intrigue and ratings, which translates to money for ESPN. So there’s no use in complaining about that. Speaking of those rankings though, the College Football Playoff committee met in Indianapolis earlier this month and decided to go with one fewer weekly ranking since the season starts a week later. That means, the weekly rankings would start Nov. 3. The proposal must be approved by the playoff’s management committee, which is made up of the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick, when they meet later this month in Dallas.
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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter! Follow @YahooDrSaturday
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