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Home > Terence Moore > Archives > 2008 > May > 02
Friday, May 2, 2008
SEC is why you won’t see football playoffs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Can we talk? This whining around the SEC over the lack of a playoff system in big-time college football is transparent. This is all about Auburn in the past, Georgia in the present and Florida, LSU, Tennessee and every other potentially explosive team for the conference in the future.
This is all about the SEC, period, and money, money, money.
That’s SEC money, lots of it, which those in the conference see coming their way like, well, to quote a raspy voice, “sugar [oranges, roses or the names of whatever bowls would be involved with a playoff system] falling from the sky.”
So why don’t these disingenuous folks just come clean? They should tell the truth, which is that they aren’t obsessed with switching to a playoff system for the good of college football, the student-athlete or all of mankind. They are obsessed with this for what they perceive would be for the good of themselves. That’s why their mostly selfish idea of implementing a playoff system of four teams was slammed again this week in Hollywood, Fla., by a gathering of the commissioners who run the flawed but perfectly adequate BCS.
That’s also why you’ll never see a playoff system any time soon. When it comes to a playoff system, the majority of those in charge of running college athletics understand that these really are disingenuous folks in SEC territory.
“I certainly wouldn’t say that,” said the diplomatically inclined Thomas Hansen over the phone on Friday from Walnut Creek, Calif., where he is commissioner of the Pac-10. Hansen joined the BCS commissioners of the Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 to vote against the proposal of SEC commissioner Mike Slive to seed the game’s top four teams each year. ACC commissioner John Swofford voted for Slive’s proposal, but it was four against two, and college presidents are overwhelmingly against a playoff system anyway.
Added Hansen, “I think we all have multiple interests, and different teams within our own conferences feel differently.”
Not in the SEC. The rhetoric is primarily the same from Baton Rouge to Athens to Gainesville. With apologies to Hansen, these disingenuous folks are saying forget everything and everybody else and think of an expanded SEC bank vault. They know their conference is more likely to have a team or three with national-championship credentials in most years. They know those particular teams already produce big bucks for themselves and also for their conference by just meeting the opening kickoff in a BCS game. They know those big bucks can become bigger bucks with a playoff system, especially since most playoff games would be dominated by SEC teams.
They know they are full of Gatorade if they say anything less.
For academic reasons, logistical reasons and so many reasons in between, a playoff system makes no sense for an already prosperous sport that has set attendance records for 11 straight years. Not only that, television ratings for college football last season on ESPN and CBS were their highest in nearly a decade.
“The strong consensus among the 11 conferences and Notre Dame was that there is no support for — and let’s just say for the sake of discussion — a full playoff of 16 teams,” said Hansen, suggesting that Slive’s four-team plan would grow before growing some more. “The fact that every single playoff in college sports or professional sports that’s ever been initiated has led to a greatly expanded playoff was the most important factor in the decision of these conferences not to even really give a lot of consideration to a plus-one format.
“We all felt the political pressures would mound rapidly and very, very strongly to expand if you add four teams, then eight teams. Wherever you draw that line, you’ll always have controversy and resulting pressure for an expanded field.”
Guess who would be screaming the most for expansion? That’s right, the SEC, in search of even bigger bucks.
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