Ohio State Athletic Director Ross Bjork spoke to the media Thursday afternoon and was clear that the College Football Playoff model should expand, but at the end of the day, Ohio State is going to be fine regardless of the outcome. The main focus, he stressed, should be on the betterment of the sport.
“We could be really, really selfish here and say we should go back to a four-team playoff, and I think Ohio State will be really good, we’ll be well positioned,” Bjork said. “But for the good of the game, I think for our conference, I think expansion should happen; 14 or 16, I could kinda go either way.”
Expansion is likely coming. The Big Ten has been in favor of a model that ensures the conference receives four automatic bids to an expanded 16-team field. That idea has lost traction recently, though Bjork suggested the conversation doesn’t need to be as public, nor does Ohio State need to use its influence selfishly.
Bjork Floats Play-In Model as a Middle Ground
Bjork was adamant that the conversations that take place about the playoffs’ future need to be open to fresh ideas, especially in relation to possible play-in games.
“Can we create play-in games that equate to automatic qualifiers? I think that’s a really good model,” Bjork said. “If you have automatic qualifying spots with play-in games, then you have more content and you eliminate the, maybe, committee dynamics that may get in the way.”
There are plenty of fan bases across the college football landscape frustrated with the nature of the committee. To many, there’s too much room for biases and, with a lack of defined commitment to particular data points, particularly with the strength of schedule diversity across the sport, for any team to get a fair crack at the field if they didn’t dominate one of the Power Four conferences.
Still, play-in games could create other chaos in the college football schedule. With a 12-game regular season, a conference championship and another potential three games in the CFP, there’s little room for those games to be played, leaving conference championships in a fragile spot.
Bjork wasn’t straight-forward about outright abandoning the Big Ten Conference Championship game, but he did seem open to it if the best model going forward called for it.
[The conference championship game] provides a tremendous amount of value, but if you’re doing AQ spots with play-in games, could there be a different model? So, I think that’s a conversation that has to continue,” Bjork said.
Non-Conference Games Must Matter in Expanded CFP, Bjork Warns
Whatever model is eventually chosen would also have to preserve the integrity of the college football regular season. Inter-conference matchups between blue-bloods are at constant risk with each suggested change to the model. Bjork wants to see those games stay, but they should have an influence on a team’s playoff consideration.
“The fact that we’re playing Texas the next two years, Alabama the two years after that, Georgia down the road, if we’re going to keep playing those games, then it needs to add up in the playoff calculation, otherwise you won’t see those games and I think that’d be sad for college football.”
Whatever the future holds, Ohio State’s AD is in favor of what works best for college football fans, the conferences, and the teams themselves. It’s a tight line to balance, but hopefully those in charge of the decision-making take a level-headed approach as Bjork suggests.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
