Inside look at playoff process
Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt, the incumbent chairman of the College Football Playoff selection committee, was in Houston last week for the announcement that the Red Raiders will play in the AdvoCare Texas Kickoff game in 2018 against Mississi
Q: Are there any changes planned for the College Football Playoff selection process?
A: We had an opportunity to step back and serve as our harshest critics, and we did that and made no recommendations to the conference commissioners for changes in the selection process. We feel very good about the process that we go through. You have 13 individuals. It’s very subjective, much more of an art than a science that we go through. Everybody comes to our meetings prepared and willing to engage. There’s not always agreement, and there’s great debate.
Q: Are you looking for the four best teams or the four most-deserving teams? Is there a difference?
A: You have to take into account the entire season. The season doesn’t start in October. Everybody has 12 regular-season opportunities, and the committee is watching. At the end of the year, we want to make sure we have the four very best teams over the course of the entire season.
Q: Will the field expand beyond four teams?
A: “I don’t think it’s imminent. This is a physical game. I haven’t heard a coach say, ‘I wish we had one more game to play.’ Twelve regularseason games, a conference championship game, a semifinal game and a national championship game, that is a long season for those kids. If there is consideration for expansion, let’s talk about taking away a regularseason game and go to 11.
Q: Do you enjoy being the front man for the CFP selection committee?
A: I thoroughly enjoy the conversation, the engagement, the group of people I’m working with. But at times when you’re the sole spokesperson for 12 other voices and you’re speaking collectively on behalf of the group and not your personal opinion, that is a unique position to be in.
Q: Is there room for more than four Texas schools in the Big 12?
A: Having gone through the process we went through as a league last year, we came out with the decision that we were best positioned at this time for the foreseeable future at 10 members. The state of Texas is a market that everybody has interest in. It continues to grow. Texas Tech is at almost 40,000 students now. That we have a law school and medical school on campus is a great point of pride. People are always asking how to penetrate the state of Texas. The Big 12 is comfortable now with the four schools that we have. We feel good about where we stand in the future. We are adding a conference championship game and believe we have the right approach for College Football Playoff inclusion. It will separate us from the other leagues, whose conference championship games don’t always have the two best teams playing. It’s positioning the Big 12 for the very best access to the College Football Playoff, and that is important.
Q: The Texas Tribune looked at Texas college finances and saw that Texas Tech is close to breaking even on athletics. How significant is that?
A: We are doing very well financially. I would say we are healthy and at the same time competitively challenged. We want to continue to invest in our athletic programs and grow. We are looking at an $84 million operational budget in fiscal year 2018, so we are very careful and do a great job of managing and strategically investing our finances to have the best return.
Q: Is there any concern that TV money is drying up?
A: There’s a lot of uncertainty within the broadcast segment of our profession and where that is going to be in the next five or 10 years. If anybody were to try to describe that to you, they would be fooling themselves that they know what will happen. I live with a 15- and a 13-year-old and see how they receive their content. It’s much different than what it was. Q: Would they rather watch a tablet than watch television? A: They are watching Netflix on their tablets. It took me awhile to get used to asking them ‘what are you doing?’ and them looking at their tablets and saying ‘watching TV.’ To me, that’s not watching TV. But when you look at how people today are downloading and live-streaming events, it’s changing. And I think it’s exciting. It’s going to bring more companies to the table in the future for those live content opportunities.
Q: Kliff Kingsbury is 24-26 in four seasons and coming off a 5-7 season. What do you need to see from his team this year?
A: Coach Kingsbury has done a very good job in so many areas. Right or wrong, a lot of times the sole criteria your fan base looks at is wins and losses, and we’re in this to win. Last year was a disappointment. Nobody was more disappointed than Kliff or me or the team. Being around campus watching our kids work out this summer, they’re determined to improve and to redeem ourselves. We’ve had as good an offensive football team as you could have the last couple of years. But there are two other phases to the game of football, and we have to continue to get better in both. I am confident that we will.
Q: How did the 2018 game against Ole Miss come about?
A: We had an opening for a non-conference game. For us, it was a great opportunity. Houston is so important to Texas Tech from a student-body recruitment standpoint, a student-athlete recruitment standpoint to fund-raising and donor relations. We cannot have enough visibility in Houston.
Q: How much has Texas Tech spent on athletic facilities during your tenure as athletic director?
A: I’ve been at Texas Tech for right at six years, and we have invested more than $125 million for facilities, and we are thinking and planning the next stage of facility development. But when you look at the 10 years that preceded me, there was more than $225 million invested into athletic facilities by my predecessor, Gerald Myers, and the university. They gave us a great foundation and start into having quality facilities, and we continue to move the ball downfield. If somebody hasn’t been to Lubbock in the last 10 years, I’m not sure they would recognize the place. We are very proud of the facilities we have. We can stand shoulder to shoulder with anybody in the country, and Lubbock is continuing to grow.
Q: What are other priorities these days?
A: We provide more for our student-athletes than ever before. With deregulation and nutritional opportunities, providing cost of attendance, which at Texas Tech is $480 a month for a student on full scholarship, we have to continue to invest in our student-athletes and give them the best opportunity to graduate and to give them a platform to be successful.