Mr. CFB: We Still Have A Lot Of Questions About The New CFP

One of the criticisms about those who run college football is that change comes at a glacier-like pace.

Remember the two-team playoff that was the BCS? Fans and talk show hosts fussed and cussed about the BCS for 16 years before the advent of the current four-team playoff in 2014.

But that narrative changed on Thursday. That’s when a working group of three commissioners plus Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick announced a proposal for a 12-team College Football Playoff that could go into effect as early as the 2023 post-season.

There are still many meetings and discussions to be had before this format is given final approval. Bill Hancock, the Executive Director of the CFP, said Thursday that the earliest the Presidents group could sign off on this would be September.

There may be tweaks and adjustments before the final product. We’ll see. But here are some questions I have as we move forward:

What was the biggest surprise? Without question, it was the decision to play the quarterfinal round of eight games on New Year’s Day and to play those games in bowls and not on campus. Swarbrick said he was in favor of this move because: “It gives college football an opportunity to reassert ownership of New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day in a powerful way.”

We would assume that the current New Year’s Six Bowls (Rose, Sugar, Peach, Orange, Fiesta, Cotton) will be the front runners as the venues to host the quarterfinals and semifinals.

What was the second biggest surprise? Actually, it was more of a shock. The new format calls for the four highest-ranked (by the CFP selection committee) conference champions to receive byes in the first round. Because Notre Dame is not in a conference, the school will NOT---I repeat NOT--be eligible to receive a bye, regardless of its ranking.

Swarbrick was sitting in the room when that decision was made and considered it an “appropriate tradeoff to get a model that I thought was the right one for college football.”

Swarbrick said he had to acknowledge that teams that play a conference championship game (like Alabama and Clemson) put their entire season at risk on the first Saturday in December. Notre Dame does not.

I’m not sure Swarbrick’s constituents will agree, especially if Notre Dame finishes in the top four of the final CFP rankings once this format is in place.

So inquiring minds want to know: Could THIS be the thing that FINALLY forces Notre Dame to join a conference? Stay tuned.

So who was the biggest winner in this deal should it come to pass?

That would be Commissioner Mike Aresco of the American Athletic Conference. Aresco, a former executive at ESPN and CBS, has long been beating the drum for his league’s inclusion in the CFP. With the top six conference champs getting bids, it means the AAC champ can get in regardless of what the Power Five conferences do.

In fact, if this format had been used last year, No. 8 Cincinnati, the champ of the AAC, and No. 12 Coastal Carolina, the champ of the Sun Belt, would have gotten in. The Pac-12 champ (Oregon at 3-2) would have been left out.

“It’s a happy day,” said Aresco when I reached him Thursday night.

Who is the next biggest winner? That would be the SEC. Let’s face it, the SEC is going to do well regardless of the format. But with six at-large bids available, the SEC has a chance to really clean up.

Using last season’s final CFP rankings, the SEC probably would have gotten four teams in the playoffs: No. 1 Alabama, No. 5 Texas A&M, No. 7 Florida and No. 9 Georgia.

That kind of access for the SEC would not have happened with an eight-team playoff, said Sankey.

“Going to eight and allocating a certain number of (automatic qualifiers), thereby reducing effectively the at-large numbers is not something that really resonated from my perspective,” said Sankey.

Translation: Twelve  is a much better deal for the SEC.

Bottom line: This deal got done—and the number was 12—because it satisfied the needs of both Mike Aresco and Greg Sankey.

Here are some other questions to consider:

What happens to the conference championship games? They become more valuable because six of them will be de-facto first-round playoff games.

What happens to the bowl system? If you’re one of the six bowls that will host the quarterfinals and semifinals then you’re golden because every year you’ll host a playoff game. But I wonder what will happen to bowls like the Outback in Tampa and the Citrus in Orlando that have been a fixture on New Year’s Day. With potentially four quarterfinal playoff games on Jan. 1 it looks to be a bit crowded.

What about the Rose Bowl? Our friends at the Rose came kicking and screaming into to the BCS and the College Football Playoff. But they did it to remain relevant. If they become a part of the new CFP, will they keep their exclusive 5 p.m. time slot on New Year’s Day? What about the years that they host a semifinal game? Would they be willing to move to the second week in January?

What about the players? In the current system the two teams that reach the national championship will have played 15 games. If a team, say Alabama, gets a first-round bye it would play 16 games to win the national championship in this system. If a team that does not get a bye in the first round runs the table it will have played 17 games.

Is 17 too many? Critics like former player Booger McFarland say yes. Look for a lot more debate on this.

One thing is for sure: With the players being asked to play more games, it’s a sure bet that legislation to allow players to use their Name, Image, and Likeness to make money will pass at some point.

Could this change the start of the regular season?

Yep. Expect there to be a discussion about moving the start of the season to the last Saturday in August, which is currently known as Week Zero. That would give the players an extra bye week.

Could the schools just get rid of a cupcake game and only play 11 regular-season games?

They certainly could but somebody would have replace the income that the schools lose on a home game, which could be $3 million or more.

When will this start? That wasn’t announced Thursday, but conventional wisdom is that it can’t start until the playoffs after the 2023 regular season. Remember that the current New Year’s Six bowls have a contract where two of them host the national semifinals each season. So the 12-year CFP contract is actually four contracts of three years in length each. That’s why Hancock has said that if there were expansion, it would not go into effect after this season or next season. Pulling it off in 2023 will be difficult, but not impossible.

So what’s next? In the next few days the 11 members of the management committee (conference commissioners and Swarbrick)  will get feedback from people on campus, their fellow conference members and stake holders. Next week that group will meet in Chicago to discuss the proposal. Then it will be forwarded to the president’s group that will meet in Dallas on June 22.

If the presidents approve then the real fun begins as the CFP will begin negotiations with ESPN, its television partner. Remember that ESPN has an exclusive negotiating window during the life of the contract. If the contract, which ends after the playoffs of the 2025 regular season, expires then the CFP will go to the open market.