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Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Let the “season of discussion” begin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Major League Baseball has its Hot Stove League. Now college football will have, in the words of SEC Commissioner Mike Slive, its “season of discussion.”
There was already going to be a lot of talk about what to do about the post-season in Division I-A football before UGA President Michael Adams floated his idea of an eight-team playoff on Tuesday. Now those discussions will involve a lot more people and will include many more ideas.
In short, there will be no off-season for college football in 2008. This topic is going to dominate everything. Starting with the NCAA Convention this week, every meeting that takes place involving college athletics this year, and there will be a lot of them, will touch on the topic of post-season football.
And that’s a good thing.
The idea of a multi-team playoff in college football has been talked to death. But the topic has never been seriously DISCUSSED among the people who would have the responsibility for formulating and implementing the plan.
It’s one thing to call a sports talk show and to bellow that college football simply MUST have a playoff or life as we know it will end. It’s another thing when you have to actually DO it and will held responsible for the consequences, both intended and unintended.
And understand this. In every effort like this there are unintended consequences.
Here’s one. In early 1994 the NCAA put together a Blue Ribbon panel to simply talk about a college football playoff. The panel even included a couple of student-athletes. One of those was Derrick Brooks, Florida State’s All-America linebacker.
At one point in the discussion Brooks spoke up and said, in so many words: “If the NCAA generates extra millions of dollars with this playoff, how much of a share would the players be expected to receive?”
“It was like somebody had sucked all the air out of the room,” said someone who was actually in the room.
See my point? Any kind of radical shift like this creates all types of circumstances that cannot be foreseen. That is not a reason not to do it. But you better go into the process with your eyes wide open.
What Dr. Adams has done is force all the parties involved to have this discussion and to put everything on the table. There has been anecdotal evidence that some presidents want some kind of a playoff. Others want no part of this issue. Now all of them are going to have to show their cards and we’ll find out exactly how much support is there.
If the support is there and the presidents want to take control and implement a playoff plan then I say go for it. If not, let’s see if we can come up with something better than what we have now.
A four-team playoff could work under the current BCS structure. And at the end of the day, that could be the compromise. We’ll see.
Until then, let the discussion begin.
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