As the College Football Playoff gets ready to undergo more changes, Florida athletics director Scott Stricklin questioned the current system. He wondered whether a committee was necessary at all when it comes to the postseason.
Every major college sport uses a committee to determine its postseason. For the CFP, it includes athletics directors, media members and former coaches.
However, Stricklin – who was previously a member of the CFP selection committee – doesn’t agree with a committee determining who makes the postseason. He wondered the impact it has on the sport as a whole, citing a desire for more objectivity.
“A committee is not ideal to choose a postseason. … I question whether it is appropriate for college football,” Stricklin said at the SEC spring meetings in Destin on Tuesday, via Yahoo! Sports‘ Ross Dellenger.
“So I think anything we can do to make the postseason more objective and less subjective is going to be better,” he added, via The Athletic’s Ralph Russo. “Whether you could do that some other way than automatics? I don’t know, but I think that’s the goal.”
The College Football Playoff committee weighs multiple factors during the selection process, fueled by metrics including head-to-head results and performance against common opponents. Strength of schedule is also important, and the CFP uses SportSource Analytics for its data.
Using a committee is a different approach from the former BCS model, which weighed computer projections as well as the AP and USA Today Coaches polls. The College Football Playoff format came about in 2014.
As the CFP expanded to 12 teams last year, strength of schedule became one of the biggest points of contention after the final rankings reveal. The debate specifically centered around Alabama and SMU, neither of which won a conference championship. Ultimately, the Mustangs became the last team in the field after falling in the ACC title game, meaning the Crimson Tide were the first team out.
Under the 12-team format, the five highest-ranked conference champions received spots in the bracket, with the four highest-ranked conference champions getting byes. Things will change this year, though, after the CFP management committee announced a straight seeding model would go into place. That means the seeds will be based on rankings, although the five highest-ranked conference champions will still be in the field.
“After evaluating the first year of the 12-team Playoff, the CFP Management Committee felt it was in the best interest of the game to make this adjustment,” said College Football Playoff executive director Rich Clark in a statement. “This change will continue to allow guaranteed access to the Playoff by rewarding teams for winning their conference championship, but it will also allow us to construct a postseason bracket that recognizes the best performance on the field during the entire regular season.”
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