Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit, who will call college football’s national championship game on ESPN, discussed the Clemson-LSU matchup and related issues on a media teleconference Tuesday.
Here are a few (condensed) takeaways from the discussion:
On which team has the edge at quarterback going into Monday’s game, LSU with Joe Burrow (the Heisman Trophy winner) or Clemson with Trevor Lawrence (25-0 as a college starting QB):
Herbstreit: "I expect to see potentially a game where it's a which-quarterback-has-the-ball-last type of game. I don't want to make it look like one has a clear advantage. … I don't know if in my years of playing the game and covering the game, probably over 30 years, I have ever seen a quarterback executing at the level of Joe Burrow in a system like this. … You've got potentially the first two picks overall in the next two (NFL) drafts going head-to-head. I don't know if we've ever had two quarterbacks in a championship game that you could say that about. They're both outstanding, but just because of the way Joe has executed with his teammates and this new offense, I think you've got to give him a slight edge going in."
Fowler: "Trevor has a lot of championship experience, and I think that counts for something, not that Joe won't deliver. There's tremendous pressure on both of them to key their offense. I can't wait to see it unfold. It's really tough to choose, though. That's why you asked the question, I know."
On calls to expand the College Football Playoff from four teams to eight:
Fowler: "I think if you're going to expand, you're doing so for the objectives of inclusion and opportunity, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you want to include every conference champion in the Power Five and add three at-large teams, that's fine. ... I don't think an expansion to eight is going to produce a much different (semifinals) bracket of four. You might have an upset. There's a possibility of that. That's exciting in sports. Less likely to happen in football than basketball. … You've got to eliminate something, either a regular-season game or the conference championship games, if you're going to add an additional round to the playoffs. … I do think (expansion) will probably happen. I think that the four has worked pretty well, though, I really do."
Herbstreit: "I think it's inevitable we'll eventually get to eight. I think how you handle the conference championships is the tricky part. Do you eliminate them? Do you keep them? Do you back down to 11 regular-season games, keep the conference championship games? Do you do home games for the first round? How do you incorporate the bowl games? What's the Rose Bowl going to do? Other than just saying 'we need to go to eight,' there's a lot of hurdles you have to overcome in order to be able to do that.
On Clemson’s place in college football history if it beats LSU to finish with back-to-back national titles and 30 consecutive wins:
Fowler: "To me, it (would be) as great as anything we've ever seen. … I know that their conference hasn't been as demanding as others in history for sure, but that's just a ridiculous amount of post-season excellence, and it would put them right with anything else. You're just not supposed to be able to do that anymore."
Herbstreit: "You know, if you envision this game on Monday night, LSU could win and wrap up just an incredible season that we'll be talking about for decades. Or on the other hand, Clemson could win, and we'll be talking about not just an incredible run this year, but we'll be talking about three out of four (national titles)."
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