CFP Director Bill Hancock At Ease with Waiting Rather than Speculating/Cowboys on National Radar

College Football Playoff Executive Director Bill Hancock and Bowl officials like Michael Konradi of the Cotton Bowl find themselves spectators as a college football season is speculated about this late spring and early summer.

STILLWATER -- Bill Hancock is among the most influential men in college athletics. The veterans administrator and leader worked in the Big Eight Conference and then took over as executive director of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship and guided March Madness to the height of it's popularity. Hancock is now doing the same for the College Football Playoff as it has become one of the most popular sporting events on the planet. However, as much assumed power that Hancock may have, he has always come off as one of the friendliest and most approachable individuals in a community of power brokers of athletics and higher education. 

Maybe, it's that Hancock knows his limits. He told Pokes Report on May 13 in the middle of a week where the future of college athletics and possibly this upcoming football season were swirling in the news cycle that he became 

"All of us football fans and people are all in this together," Hancock started. "Of course, I look at what is being said, but I'll tell you Robert, you can't get caught up in all the speculation because no one knows, and even if you want to speculate you might make a statement this week and by next week or Monday then things would be different." 

Hancock said that he hopes that I will go on speculating or following the roller coaster of speculation and news. Just in the 24 hours before our conversation the California State University system had announced it's schools, including football playing San Diego State, San Jose State, and Fresno State; would not have classes on campus this fall. 

The MAC worried about finances and a possible absence of football revamped their basketball tournaments and cut out conference championship and championship tournaments in eight sports for the next four years. 

NCAA President Mark Emmert had told ESPN that he was not going to mandate a centralized start time if there is a college football season. The chatter among the power five conferences and their commissioners is picking up.

"Think about how much energy has gone into, kind of wasted, frankly, into speculating. I know that is what people love to do," Hancock said and minutes later he was encouraging me to keep speculating because that is what those of us in the media do. "As soon as I got comfortable with the fact that I'm going to have to go with whatever decisions are made, then I got happier."

He finished that comment with a big chuckle. Now, Hancock knows that it is no laughing matter. His event and college football as a whole is a huge financial engine that college athletics needs. His daughter-in-law, Karen Hancock, is a long time soccer coach at Oklahoma State. Hancock is emotionally invested in all of college athletics. It has been his life. He just knows his control and influence is not over COVID-19, politicians and public health officials, and what it will do as far as decisions made by the Big 12 and all other major conferences. 

"We hope and we want the season to start on time and we want that (CFP) championship game on Jan. 11, but if it can't and it doesn't then we will pivot and work accordingly," Hancock said in the radio interview we conducted with him. "I will add one more thing Robert, four months ago was the championship game, and no one, no one that I know of knew what we would be facing when we got to May 13. My goodness, how the world has changed."

While Hancock oversees the College Football Playoff and works closely with the power five conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, the CFP also works with and assigns match-ups with the New Year's Six bowl games and that includes the Cotton Bowl. 

Michael Konradi is one of the leaders in the Football Bowl Association and the chief marketing officer for the Goodyear Cotton Bowl.

"Beyond that Robert, obviously, our operation runs all the regular season games held in AT&T Stadium (including the Big 12 Championship Game) working closely with the stadium and the Cowboys. Right out of the shoot, we have USC and Alabama playing in the Advocare Classic," Konradi said. "Yes, we're monitoring everything we can, but if anybody comes on your station and says they have the answer then I want to meet them." 

While most bowl games don't have to worry about a kickoff until after the season, the Goodyear Cotton Bowl administration is involved starting week one and with Nick Saban and company and the perceived uncertainty of the Pac-12 and whether USC will be ready to travel and play Sept. 5.

"Nobody knows for sure and everything is conjecture right now," Konradi continued. "The conjecture has really changed over the last month. A few weeks ago, I would have said we were looking at a delay in the start of the season, and we still may be. Now, the rhetoric has changed and conferences going at it as they see fit. Different strokes for different folks."   

Bill Hancock stays up with what is going on in Stillwater. The Oklahoma native is the father of the late Will Hancock that died in the Oklahoma State basketball plane tragedy in January of 2001. As mentioned, his daughter-in-law and granddaughter are in Stillwater. 

"Yeah, I love the way that Oklahoma State fans follow their team, follow their teams," Hancock said and he knows as he spends a few weekends each fall in Stillwater for soccer and football. "There is such passion across the country and it looks like we have a great season ahead of us. There are some great players returning and some really promising young players. I think we're all hoping we have the season to see how that all unfolds."

Michael Konradi is also up-to-date on Oklahoma State football as the Cowboys have been in the Cotton Bowl twice under current head coach Mike Gundy. They are a team the Cotton Bowl stays very aware of.

"There is no doubt that (Mike) Gundy does a good job of reloading over time and putting a good product on the field," Konradi said. "Ultimately, I do hope for the Oklahoma State faithful and certainly all of college football that we have a chance to play this year because there are some teams that have a real shot to change the landscape at the top of college football from what it has been over the last few years."

Yes, the Cowboys are one of those, but we can't have change or more of the same without having a season. I promise I will continue to speculate based on what I see and hear, but like Bill Hancock said, I know if he isn't making the decisions then I certainly am not. We are all at the mercy of the pandemic and how well our society has managed it by midsummer. That is when we will know whether we might see the Cowboys host the Oregon State Beavers on Thursday, Sept 3.