Playoff may be salvaged
CFP and Big 12 bosses say too early to know
By opting to step back from this season over the health and safety concerns posed by the coronavirus pandemic, the Big Ten and Pac-12 have fractured the existing postseason model and stoked doubts over whether the rest of the Bowl Subdivision can proceed with a season that ends with the College Football Playoff.
Already hampered by the absence of two major conferences, the fate of the season and its championship now depends on where the remaining Power Five leagues land.
One league in particular, the Big 12, has been painted as the swing vote – in charge of a momentous decision that could impact the thinking of the Atlantic Coast Conference, which would in turn influence the Southeastern Conference.
As things stand, it would take an imaginative approach for the championship portion of the postseason to exist without a portion of the Power Five. Removing the Pac-12 and Big Ten from the equation raises questions about the ability to conduct the playoff and national championship without a complete roster of conferences.
“It’s too soon to say what the implications will be,” CFP executive director Bill Hancock said in a statement shared with USA TODAY Sports. “We will wait for guidance from the (CFP) board and management committee.”
Foremost among the questions posed by the absence of the Big Ten and Pac-12 – which have been joined in opting out of the season by the MidAmerican and Mountain West from the Group of Five – is whether the
board of university presidents and chancellors would elect to continue under the Playoff model while short more than a third of the typical FBS membership, or whether it would be reasonable to do so under such conditions.
“It’s going to be a while into the season before all of that’s resolved,” Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Wednesday when speaking about the conference’s decision to proceed with the season.
Given the money generated by the Playoff, conference representatives could choose to move ahead as planned. However, doing so creates additional questions. Should the Big Ten, Pac-12 and two Group of Five conferences be able to play in the spring, as the leagues have said is a possibility, would they have the option of conducting their own Playoff?
Beyond the significant financial considerations, the Playoff was created for the express purpose of eliminating the controversy over deciding college football’s national champion. If a full season returns next fall and several conferences compete in the spring, would two teams have claims to the 2021 championship?
“I think you’d ask the logical question of whether either one of them is a champion,” Bowlsby said.
If there is a Playoff without two Power Five leagues, the conversation would shift to address the criteria for reaching the national semifinals. Hancock said last month, when the Power Five first decided to eliminate non-conference play, that Playoff committee members would stick to the baseline protocols despite the inability to assess head-tohead results and results against common opponents.
In a year without non-conference play, the selection committee could adhere to the existing guidelines and protocols or adopt a more linear approach of choosing from conference champions. Rewarding conference champions would achieve the benefit of minimizing confusion and anarchy during an otherwise tumultuous season – though come at the cost of removing the traditional debate and weekly rankings that have been a hallmark of the Playoff era.
If there’s a season, it may be that attempting to recapture the rhythms of the Playoff chase is in the best interest of the sport and its audience.
Within that question is another: With three Power Five leagues still in action, would the Playoff use the fourth spot for a plus-one, at-large team or award the best team from the Group of Five conferences?
The implications of losing a third Power Five conference are obvious. In the scenario where the Big 12 opts out, the Playoff selection committee would be picking from a drastically cut and weakened roster of contenders encompassing 29 Power Five teams and another three Group of Five leagues: the American, Sun Belt and Conference USA.
To hold the postseason under these conditions would demand more than an active imagination – it would require accepting a regular season with drastically decreased drama, since teams from the ACC and SEC would likely round out the four-team field should the Playoff not ensure a place for at least one Group of Five member.
This would be a postseason plan that manufactures the Playoff at the expense of the season’s normal unpredictability. In this environment, would that be a championship worth conducting at all?