Dan Radakovich was on the first-ever College Football Playoff selection committee.
He was part of the group that made the controversial decision to select Ohio State over TCU or Baylor as the final team in the 2014 field. He was also on the committee in 2016, when the members kept out Big Ten champion Penn State for the Pac-12’s Washington. And in his final year on the committee, Radakovich and his members chose both Alabama and Georgia instead of a Big Ten team.
Now, years later, as Miami’s athletic director, he finds himself on the other side of the decision. The Hurricanes, 10-2 and ranked No. 12 nationally, have apparently been eliminated from the playoff field barring something out of the ordinary. Radakovich remains disappointed with what he calls some “baffling” decisions by a group he once belonged to.
“I always thought it was a body of work. Having sat in that room, I know the committee has a tough job,” he told Yahoo Sports this week. “You just hope enough facts are presented to let people know that this is a good football team, has incredible offensive stats and has a Heisman Trophy candidate leading the way.”
Heading into a weekend of conference championships, the CFP selection committee is the focus of intense scrutiny, perhaps more so than ever before. It has made many within the sector ask a question: Is there a better way to pick playoff teams?
It’s no secret that SEC and Big Ten leaders are exploring changes to a future playoff format, as well as an expected reexamination of the selection process. It was discussed publicly this week.
“I’d like to see us be a little more objective,” Tennessee athletic director Danny White said on a local radio broadcast, SportsTalk. “I don’t think there was anything wrong with the classification system of the old BCS. The problem was that the old BCS only consisted of two teams.”
The unveiling of this week’s rankings has prompted university leaders to publicly spar.
Athletic directors are embroiled in social media feuds over the rankings, coaches are questioning the committee’s process and commissioners are even openly condemning the group’s decisions.
The controversy has fueled college football’s media engine. And that’s exactly what the CFP’s television partner, ESPN, wants.
“My personal opinion is that we’re coming out with the rankings too early,” said Bob Bowlsby, the former Big 12 commissioner and architect of the 12-team format. “It’s tough for the chairman and the committee to do it every week. Two polls, one mid-season and one at the end, would be better. But ESPN would stand out.”
Under the new CFP television contract agreed to in the spring, ESPN will pay the conferences more than $1 billion annually for playoff rights. This includes six shows revealing the latest rankings.
This week’s penultimate ranking show caused more of a stir than usual. Committee chairman Warde Manuel revealed that the teams not playing this weekend will be stuck in their current order. Miami, for example, couldn’t outpace Alabama to get the potential last spot in the field. Or Tennessee can’t jump Ohio State to get a home first-round game.
For many in the college football world, it was a stunning admission that takes away much of the tension from Sunday’s latest revelation and has led to a week of moaning, groaning and outright attacks on the 13-member committee.
“You guys really meet for days and come up with these rankings?” Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, his team one spot behind Miami at No. 13, said in a tweet earlier this week. “Do you actually pay attention to the quality of players, teams and road environments or are you just trying to make the ACC feel relevant?”
Then there was Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard, who criticized the committee’s positioning of SMU, Boise State and Indiana for their weak schedules. “The message is clear: win as many games as possible, no matter who you play against,” he posted on social media. “Time to Rethink Non-Conference Scheduling.”
Meanwhile, commissioners from the Big 12 and ACC reprimanded committee members for several decisions. Brett Yormark, of the Big 12, scolded the group for putting Boise State ahead of its highest-ranked team, No. 15 Arizona State, and ACC’s Jim Phillips says Miami “deserves better from the committee.”
The 13-member committee is made up of a variety of members from different parts of college football. Nearly half of the group consists of active athletic directors, one from the Power Four conferences and two from the Group of Five level. There are four former football coaches, two former players and a former sportscaster who covered college football. The roster and biographies are publicly available.
Committee members are appointed by conference commissioners and university presidents who serve on CFP boards of directors. They have staggered terms that typically last three to four years, and they are dismissed when members talk about their own school or a school where they have a conflict. For example, Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek is snubbed in discussions at South Carolina and SMU (he has sons who work at each school).
Outside of the football season, the group meets a few times a year. Their weekly meetings begin in mid-October from a room on the fourth floor at the Gaylord Texan, a palatial resort just north of Dallas in Grapevine. They are given iPads to view edited game footage and have mountains of data and statistics from a computer monitor in their conference room at the Gaylord.
Their criteria for ranking teams is quite simple and publicly available on the CFP website:
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strength of the schedule
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mutual competition
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comparative outcomes of common opponents
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other relevant factors such as the unavailability of key players and coaches that may affect performance
The idea of the selection committee emerged from a move away from a system – the computer-based BCS – that caused controversy and consternation for years. Leaders wanted to introduce the human element: real eyes on real games making real decisions. After all, most other NCAA championships are determined through such a committee.
“It works in every other NCAA championship. This should be no different,” said Bill Hancock, former executive director of the BCS and then the CFP. “Each of those committees receives criticism from the teams that barely miss the field.”
When the committee was founded, Jack Swarbrick said: ‘No one wanted to live through the computer age again. It was more reputation than reality, but no one wanted to go back to that.”
Maybe that sentiment has changed now? White, Tennessee’s athletic director, is calling for an “objective computer-based ranking system.”
“We have introduced a very subjective ranking process that I don’t think is necessary,” he said.
During the last decade of the four-team playoffs, the BCS rankings were largely identical to the CFP’s poll. There were only minor differences in the latest CFP rankings compared to the BCS. Penn State, No. 3 in the CFP, and No. 4 Notre Dame would flip if they used the BCS formula. The same goes for No. 8 SMU and No. 7 Tennessee. The BCS favors the Mustangs. If the BCS were used to complete a twelve-team playoff bracket, Alabama, as in the CFP poll, would be the last to take the field. Under the BCS formula, South Carolina, not Miami, would be the first team to drop.
The selection committee still has a difficult job.
The twelve-team playoff introduces three total stress points for committee decisions, all with significant consequences:
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Which four conference champions will get a first-round bye?
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Which four teams will get the home games?
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And perhaps most importantly, which teams are last in the field as at-large selections?
All three are the subject of public criticism from administrators and coaches.
“When we went from four to 12, the conventional wisdom was that it would be easier on the committee,” Hancock said. ‘But we knew inside that this wouldn’t be true. In fact, it is more difficult.”
If SMU beats Clemson, the committee will have to decide whether the Mountain West champion gets the fourth and final first-round bye from the Big 12 champion. Members will then need to determine the location of the first round home games: Should the Big Ten and SEC championship runners-up be allowed to host, along with current projections Ohio State and Notre Dame?
Finally, there’s the third stress point, which will only get exciting if No. 17 Clemson upsets SMU. The Tigers could steal a bubble team spot. They would receive the automatic bid awarded to one of the top five ranked conference champions. The committee would leave one spot for two teams: SMU or Alabama.
Politics is in full swing.
“When you go 11-1 and 8-0 in one of the undisputed top three conferences in America, you can’t say you’re not in the top 12,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said, issuing a warning to the committee and to a shot at the Big 12. “You wish you didn’t have to do politics this way.”
Some hope that politics will be reduced in the future by a change in format that limits the selection committee’s options.
The Big Ten and SEC claim they have decision-making authority over a future format. During spring negotiations between CFP leagues, the Big Ten proposed a 14-team playoff with multiple automatic qualifiers for the power conferences: three each for the SEC and Big Ten; two each for the ACC and Big 12; one reserved for the top G5 champion; and three large spots. The 3-3-2-2-1 concept was rejected outright.
Despite the setback, however, the multi-AQ format is expected to continue to be explored this spring as the SEC and Big Ten look to not only change the format but also explore the selection process.
Will the selection committee undergo a thorough review? Is that really necessary?
“It’s hard to protect yourself from accusations of bias,” Bowlsby said. “Everyone comes from somewhere. You are a product of your history, your judgments and points of view. Someone is being left out.”
Last year it was Alabama over Florida State for the final spot.
This year? Alabama over Miami, according to the current situation.
“The commission’s task is very difficult,” Radakovich said. “Everyone in the committee looks at it with different eyes. Some based on analysis and data, some looking through the lens of a coach. It’s a mix of all those views. I thought we had done enough.”
