CFP role will keep Tech’s AD very busy

Stansbury may face many hours aweek evaluating teams.

Todd Stansbury’s spot on the College Football Playoffff selection committee is merited. The Georgia Tech athletic director, named Wednesday to be the ACC’s new representative to the 13- person group, has a long list of credentials that recommend him for the position to help select the College Football Playoffff fifield.

“The opportunity to play college football and be close to the sport for the majority ofmy career has given meso much,” Stansbury said in a statement. “I hope to give back just a little by serving on this committee and helping choose the very best teams to compete for the ultimate prize each of the next three years.”

What awaits Stansbury in his three-year term on the committee?

A considerable demand on his time and energy, one that will require himto be ultra effificient in his time management, likely delegate more of his Tech duties to his staffff and probably limit his personal time during the fall.

Clemson Athletic Director Dan Radakovich, the former Tech AD whom St ans bury will succeed, estimated he spent 15 to 20 hours perweek evaluating teams. That’s in addition to the weekly meetings convened for the fifinal six to seven weeks of the season to assemble the committee’s Top 25 rankings.

“It kind of boiled down to, that was really my hobby,” said Rad akovich, in an interview with the AJC in 2015 following his fifi rs to ff our seasons on the committee .“You work, and some people play golf, read books, whatever. During that period, from around the beginning of the season through December, that was kind ofwhat the ‘leisure’ was spent doing, was being prepared.”

Preparing to rank the CFP’s Top 25 and then actually ranking them is a methodical process. Unlike most ballots in the AP and coaches’ Top 25, the CFP rankings are not static. A team that wins doesn’t necessarily keep its ranking, nor does a teamthat loses drop, as more information about each team becomes available.

For each member, that requires staying on top of teams likely to be ranked, assembling a personal top 25 andt hen preparing to explain and debate teams’ merits.

Committee members watch games, both on Saturday sand condensed replays prepared by the CFP staffffffffffff. They pore over statistical breakdowns.

Members are assigned two conferences to know particularly well, provide a weekly report and be a point person on discussions on those leagues’ teams. While Stansbury likely would not be assigned the ACC, committee members might ask for his analysis on league members (hewill be recused from conversations about Tech) he may have seen in person.

“There were times you’d say, ‘Hey, did you see this team play?’ or ‘What did you think of that?’” Radakovich said. “Not as part of that report, but as part of general discussion.”

Once the weekly rankings begin in late October or early November, committeemembers travel to the CFP headquarters just outside Dallas for meetings that run all day Monday and half of Tuesday.