FAYETTEVILLE — Former Arkansas athletics director Jeff Long has rejoined the College Football Playoff selection committee.
Long, 65, was appointed to a 1-year term Monday, CFP executive director Rich Clark announced. Long will fill the remaining year on the term for Steve Wieberg, who stepped down from the committee for personal reasons.
“I absolutely was interested,” Long said Monday from his home in Northwest Arkansas. “I enjoyed that experience and relish the opportunity to be back in the room for that selection.”
In addition to Long, Nebraska athletics director Troy Dannen was appointed to the committee to represent the Big Ten. Dannen is replacing Damon Evans, who recently left his job as Maryland’s athletics director for the same role at SMU.
Long and Dannen will join a 13-member committee that includes Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek and meets weekly in Grapevine, Texas, beginning each October. Yurachek, who represents the SEC, is in the second of a 3-year term.
When the CFP was established in 2014, Long was selected as the selection committee’s first chairman. He served a 4-year term from 2014-17, including a 2-year stint as chair, and the 2025 season will be his fifth on the selection committee.
“Those first two years, I had to explain the brand-new system that nobody was aware of, so it was very challenging,” Long said. “Then I got to serve two years just being on the committee, and that was a different experience, but I enjoyed that.
“This one, coming in and not being attached to an athletic program, a conference…just being on the selection committee will be just an incredible experience, and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Long is the second individual to return to the selection committee after his initial term ended. Former Stanford, Notre Dame and Washington coach Tyrone Willingham served alongside Long from 2014-17, and Willingham returned for a 1-year stint in 2021 to fill a void left when former Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum stepped down for health reasons.
Long said he will meet for the first time with the 2025 committee this week in Chicago.
He said he is unsure whether he will need to recuse himself from discussing FBS programs with which he has previously been affiliated. He served as athletics director at Pittsburgh (2003-07), Arkansas (2008-17) and Kansas (2018-21), and has also worked in administration at Rice, Michigan, Virginia Tech and Oklahoma.
“If it remains the same as when I was on before, I do not believe I would need to recuse myself from [discussing] any institution,” Long said.
Since he stepped down as Kansas’ athletics director in 2021, Long has served in consulting roles that connect companies to college sports leaders. He said he has retired from being an athletics director.
“I’m still engaged with a lot of folks through those consulting things, which I enjoy very much,” Long said. “I’m not ready to fold up my tent and go home. I still think I have a lot to offer. I still feel like I have a lot of energy, and so this will give me a way to channel that as well, to be a part of this committee.”
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