The College Football Playoff selection committee arrived Wednesday for training. The immediate question to be asked: Training for what?
With the 2020 football season potentially cut in two – at least for now – this week has delivered a brutal reminder that there is only one trophy.
That’s the CFP’s Gordian Knot at the moment: Who gets to play for the national championship with 77 FBS teams playing in the fall and as many as 53 potential players in the spring?
“I think it’s ok to ask the logical question whether [a champion crowned in either semester] is an actual champion, “said Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby.
That kind of conversations start to blow up. If all 130 FBS teams do not compete in one championship at a time, is it really a championship?
One person close to the CFP suggested that a fall champion vs game champion game is likely out of the question. That would require the game to be played in the spring, three or four months after the fall winner had completed his part of the season. Awarding a trophy for each “semester” of football would be “honest”, according to the same source.
That would essentially be a split national championship, something the CFP has eliminated and fans of college football have actually not seen since 2003 when USC no. Finished 1st in the AP Top 25 and LSU won the BCS Championship Game.
The essential challenge for the CFP Management Committee (FBS Commissioners and Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick) is the decision to stage a playoff for one set of conferences excluding the other.
“If at some point they decide to push back in the spring, that would make it exciting to have a CFP. I still think we can do that,” said Ohio Day coach Ohio Day, whose Big Ten is from goal to play in the spring of 2021.
The CFP selection committee began a two-day virtual meeting on Wednesday focusing on the knowledge of the rookies on the selection committee. (Wyoming AD Tom Burman, Colorado AD Rick George and former Penn State player John Urschel).
The 13-member committee is usually accused of judging the value of the 130 FBS teams, but these have been beaten not only by years but by philosophies.
The Big Ten, Pac-12, Mountain West and MAC (plus three individual programs) – 53 total teams at the moment – hope to give it a go in the spring. The other 77 FBS teams plan to play in the fall or lie that way.
If held individually each semester, this makes it more likely that a CFP bracket with four teams would be heavy with one conference. Only oce in the six-year history of the CFP have two teams from one conference made the playoffs (2017, Alabama and Georgia).
“It’s too early to tell,” said CFP executive director Bill Hancock. “We will wait for direction from the management committee and remain flexible.”
In May, sources with CBS Sports discussed the legitimacy of a playoff without all the FBS teams participating.
“It will take a while in the season before it’s all resolved,” said Bowlsby, a member of that management committee.
When there is a championship, Bowlsby made his case for holding in the fall: “They talk about playing in the spring. That does not necessarily mean that football will be played in the spring. You remember what March, April and May were like this year and the virus was heavy on us. That’s why I was not a real fan of moving preemptively to spring. ”
However, the selection committee will have limited data points to consider. Less, mostly conference games.
If you want to deepen further, seven of the 13 committee members currently have jobs at FBS schools. The division of those seven schools: four will play in the fall (Florida, Oklahoma, Georgia Tech, Arkansas) and three will go in the spring (Iowa, Colorado, Wyoming).
“We put 13 people in the room and ask them to do a very difficult job,” Bowlsby said. “I think, in fact, their job is the same as it always has been. They just do not have as many tools available.”
