Hard Rock raved as playoff venue

MIAMI GARDENS — As the Capital One Orange Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium gets set to be one of the two College Football Playoff semifinal hosts this postseason, CFP executive director Bill Hancock spoke to reporters ahead of Thursday night’s game between Miami and North Carolina.

Hancock discussed everything from the future of the College Football Playoff to how pleased its committee is with Hard Rock Stadium, which will also host the 2021 National Championship Game, as a venue and even the more hard-pressing subject of how teams get selected.

Hancock raved about Hard Rock Stadium. Its recent renovations cut seating capacity down by about 8,000, but it’s still barely above the 65,000-seat minimum. Hancock views the upgrades much more valuable than larger capacity.

“The addition of the premium seats here and the enhancement of the experience for fans more than compensated for the loss of those 8,000 seats,” he said. “This place is remarkable, and y’all [in Miami] may be immune to it, you may be spoiled by it, but don’t take it for granted. It is one of the most remarkable in our country.”

The question came up on whether there’s a path into a four-team playoff for an undefeated Group of 5 team, like UCF last season, which was left out.

“Yes, there is a path, and UCF got full consideration from the committee last year,” said Hancock, citing that the committee had UCF ranked higher entering bowl season than the polls, although the committee still had the Knights all the way down at No. 12. “Play a good schedule, win your games and you’re going to be in the hunt for a College Football Playoff [appearance].”

A possible solution, although logistics would need to be determined, could be if sometime in the future the playoff is expanded from four teams to eight teams.

A change would not be possible for another eight years, given the current contract, but Hancock cited an 80 percent approval rating among schools as a reason why no change would be imminent.