During a visit to Atlanta on Wednesday, College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock discussed the new event, the team-selection process and this city’s role. Here are highlights from Hancock’s conversation with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Q: What should colleges learn from the selection committee’s work this year to improve their chances of reaching the playoff in the future?
A: I don't think there's any question teams are going to have to play better schedules in order to get in this playoff. … If two teams are 11-1, then the committee will look at how they built that 11-1 record.
Q: Take us inside the committee meetings. The 12 members brought very different backgrounds. What were the dynamics?
A: It made for fascinating discussions because everybody came at it from a different perspective. They debated. They argued, but they always argued very professionally. There were some pointed discussions. They laughed. It was tension-breaking laughter on occasion. It was a remarkable process.
Q: How differently did a former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and former football coaches approach the task?
A: Condoleezza was a terrific committee member. She was everything we thought she would be — bright, articulate, tough, knows the game. Several people in the room had experience as coaches: Tyrone (Willingham), Tom (Osborne), Barry Alvarez. The coaches could say a team's cornerbacks are a little soft or their left tackle is not as good. Sometimes they would debate with each other about particular teams.
Q: In the end, how close was the call on Ohio State over Baylor and TCU as the fourth and final team in the field?
A: It was close. After Baylor defeated Kansas State, the committee decided Baylor would be ahead of TCU because of head-to-head (victory). And then when Ohio State added a victory over a quality opponent (Wisconsin), that pushed them ahead. … It was Ohio State's significant victories and strength of schedule that pushed them ahead of Baylor.
Q: Did the committee miscalculate in its next-to-last ranking by putting TCU No. 3, then dropping it to No. 6 a week later after a 55-3 win over Iowa State?
A: No, because based on the body of work to that time TCU was third in their minds. We talked about whether we should help create expectations for the next week by not making them third — by making them fifth or doing something else for some political reason. And the committee said no, our charge is to rank the teams as they are this day. I think it probably led some people to surmise the wrong thing about TCU.
Q: Because they’re not accustomed to the traditional polls dropping a team after an easy win?
A: It's a whole new mentality. There's 80 years of poll mentality built up in college football. It'll take a while for fans to get used to the new start-from-scratch-each-week system. This system is better. It showed up in a lot of the decisions the committee made, (such as) the decision that Florida State, even though undefeated, wouldn't be No. 1. The committee was able to big deeper and look beyond the won-lost record.
Q: How did Atlanta’s Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, not traditionally one of the upper-tier bowls, move into the realm with the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta and Cotton as rotating hosts of playoff semifinals?
A: They had the staff and the committee (to do it). They had the city — when I say city, I mean the facilities, stadium, hotels, transportation. They had the traditional foothold in college football and the traditional respect. All of that went into their being chosen. It was not a hard decision for the group to make.
Q: Atlanta plans to bid to host the national championship game in January 2018 in the new Falcons stadium. What are its chances?
A: I don't want to handicap the race because there will be a lot of competition. I worked with the Final Four for 16 years and watched a lot of site-selection processes. Those are very competitive, and this one will be even more competitive. I would suspect somewhere between eight and 12 cities will bid for three slots (the 2018, 2019 and 2020 championship games, all to be awarded next year).
Q: How much do you know about the new stadium?
A: Gary (Stokan, Peach Bowl president) and the stadium people have kept us apprised of the process. I like the Georgia Dome. I’m a Georgia Dome fan. If this stadium is better than the Georgia Dome, it’s really going to be something.
Q: If a four-team playoff is good, why wouldn’t an eight-team playoff be better?
A: The fact is, we have a contract for 12 years on a four-team playoff, and there has not been any discussion within our group about expanding. … It doesn't surprise me at all that some people want more. They want more football, and they want their team to be advantaged. However, the tension between Nos. 4 and 5 would be absolutely the same between Nos. 8 and 9.
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