Can You Wear Too Many Hats?
In the modern age of College Athletics, the Athletic Director is one of, if not, the most important person on campuses across the nation.
When you add in the Transfer Portal along with Name, Image, and Likeness, this position takes on an entirely new level of focus. With this being said, we will analyze some of these top athletic leaders who also hold seats on this season’s College Football Playoff Selection Committee. Yes, there are active ADs within this group.
In addition to who they are, we will divulge what the committee does, their roles within the committee, and how this trend needs to be changed immediately for a number of reasons.
What Is The CFP Selection Committee?
The mission of the committee is simple: to select the best teams, rank the teams for inclusion in the playoffs, and then assign the teams to the bracket and their game sites. While doing this, we have been told that these members will “Step out of the room” when the situation arises that their team is being discussed within the group. Now, you can have your own opinion on if this really takes place, as we do.
These selections are the be made following a list of “Principles” to be followed. These are: Strength of schedule, Head-to-head competition, and comparative outcomes of common opponents, without the incentivizing margin of victory. In recent years, we saw the final of these relevant factors, such as the availability of key players and coaches that may have affected a team’s performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason performance, as all Florida State fans may have instantly unfollowed our work just by mentioning this.
We will now look at who is on this committee.
Who Is In?
In addition to the group we are going to discuss, this committee is filled with former coaches, players, administrators, and journalists. In what is an astononshing number to 4 Star Sports, the 13-person group holds 6 active Athletic Directors.
You may ask, “Why are ADs on the Committee?’ and we have also asked this question. The CFP defends this by saying these men and women have knowledge of college football, and, because of this, it makes this committee stronger with their participation. As mentioned, they are recused from voting when discussing their schools.
This season, we will see Hunter Yuracheck, from Arkansas, Mack Rhoades, from Baylor, Chris Massaro, from Middle Tennessee State, David Sayler, from Miami of Ohio, Damon Evans, of Maryland, and finally, Carla Williams, from Virginia. As you can see, these are from numerous conferences at both the “P4” and “G5” level.
How do these esteemed members of these campuses have time to vote?
Is There Time For This?
We wish it were as easy as just sending in a vote. There is a “Criteria” which includes a meeting schedule beginning at midseason. This schedule is where these members will select teams each week and rank them. To have a better understanding, these members are to independently evaluate immense information to form an independent and quantitative opinion.
The process of voting includes seven rounds of ballots weekly which are compiled collectively into the CFP Rankings we see during the season. The committee ranks 25 teams weekly which consists of the five conference champions and the next seven highest ranked teams will be included in the bracket at seasons end.
If the stresses of being an Athletic Director and committe member wasn’t enough, the committee also now assigns two members as a “Point person” to gather material about the teams in each conference and independent teams. This process, according to the CFP, will assist in nothing being overlooked.
What does this “person” do exactly? Well, they are involved in a number of things, with the first being to ensure the committee has complete, detialed information about each team. Additionally, this person allows the conferences and independent institutions to have an effective and effecient channel for facts being provided to the committee.
These individials are not to be advocates for any teams in a conference or independent team. The role is to be a conduit to a particular conference or independent team is purely for objective fact-gathering.
These communications with conference staff members occur on three teleconferecnes during the regular season. These take place prior to the first and fourth rankings, and, one week before Selection Day. Any contact between any conference staffer and a point person, or vice versa, is prohibited.
In what is, in a way, surprising, the members are not expected to attend games in person. They are, however, expected to watch live television games and video replays extensively.
Is it just us, or does this seem like a bit too much work?
What Needs To Change?
We can swiftly answer this question with a yes. In the case of the current Athletic Directors, this is too much work. After all, they are the leader of Athletics on their campuses. How can we expect business, because that is what college sports are now, to be ran properly?
How do we expect the rankings to “Be right” if these individuals are attending meetings weekly and extensively watching a large numbers of other teams play? If this isnt enough, some of these members are point persons for conferences as well.
How does the College Football Playoff expect to keep its integrity when the main leader on campus is wearing multiple hats? This is simply not a plan of success for the biggest money maker of college football on the D1 level.
In closing, we do have a small solution to this issue. Continue to add former ADs, coaches, players, and more to this committee. Names such as Dave Clawson, David Shaw, Rip Scherer, who we spoke with on this exact topic, and others are some who we at 4 Star Sports think would be ideal for this extensive role.
