Obama Wants Playoffs

Bill Hancock said that the Big 12′s losses to the Big Ten and Pac-10 earlier this summer won’t influence the BCS.

“As far as the BCS’s future and operation, there’s no effect,” Hancock, the BCS executive director, said at the Mid-American Conference Media Day. Nebraska will leave for the Big Ten in 2011 and Colorado will exit for the Pac-10 in 2012.

Hancock also said — while not in favor of a playoff system for college football — any potential playoff system would have to include 16 teams.

“A 16-team playoff in the only way to have a playoff because it would include all of the conferences.” he said.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2010-07-31-bcs-hancock-big-12-playoff_N.htm

Is the BCS supposed to be fair?

I’m serious.

I get nervous when politicians, media, and college presidents start throwing around words like “fair.” It is a moving definition. Some people think that if their neighbor drives a nicer car than them that it’s not fair. The term is too vague.

But however it is defined I must ask again: Where is it written that the BCS is SUPPOSED to be fair?

Here is the problem that I have with Mr. Fishel’s sometimes breathless argument:

No. 1: All of these numbers he cites are a matter of public record. Nobody has to shine a light on anything. It’s all out there. The six BCS equity conferences that put this deal together in 1998 and marketed it and grew it make a lot more money from this deal than the other five conferences. It was designed that way in 1998 by the television networks who were putting up the money. No news there.

No. 2: I want the five non-equity conferences to get as much money as they can out of the BCS pool. Keep pushing. Keep negotiating. Keep reminding the other conferences of your value. The Mountain West has a chance to play its way in to an automatic bid in 2012 and 2013.

But to say these conferences are the victims of “revenue discrimination” (I’ve got to write that one down for future use) is to presume they had a pre-existing claim to the BCS money pool that is somehow being denied.

http://blogs.ajc.com/barnhart-college-football/2010/05/27/is-the-bcs-supposed-to-be-fair/?cxntfid=blogs_barnhart_college_football

Bowl Championship Series executive director Bill Hancock has responded to Capitol Hill as Congress possibly looks to take action regarding a college football playoff. In a letter to Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Hancock says higher education officials should be responsible for decisions on college athletics.

“I believe that decisions about college football should be made by university presidents, athletics directors, coaches and conference commissioners rather than by members of Congress,” Hancock wrote.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/campusrivalry/post/2010/05/bcs-executive-director-bill-hancock-responds-to-capitol-hill/1

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock said he would love to meet with President Obama and lay out his case for why a playoff would be bad for college football.

“I think it would be way cool,” Hancock said Wednesday. “If the opportunity presented itself, we would go in a minute. But he has so much else to do, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. He hasn’t said anything about it since Florida went to get its trophy (in 2009).”

http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2010/04/bcs-boss-would-love-a-face-to-face-with-obama.html

With the Bowl Championship Series meetings set to begin tomorrow in Scottsdale, Ariz., I had a chance to catch up with executive director Bill Hancock to ask about what is on the agenda and how conference expansion would affect the BCS.

Hancock said expansion was not a topic on the agenda, though that all could change. The Chicago Tribune reported an accelerated timetable for Big Ten expansion has emerged. High-ranking Big Ten officials were expected to meet Sunday afternoon in Washington D.C. to discuss expansion. If they came out of those meetings with a mandate to expand, commissioner Jim Delany could use the BCS meetings to notify other conferences of their intentions.

Hancock was mum on his expectations for expansion, but did say, “I don’t think conference expansion will change the attitude of the schools about a playoff. It’s very clear that the schools and conferences are not moving toward a playoff and I just can’t see expansion changing that.”

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_college/2010/04/bcs-chief-bill-hancock-expansion-wont-change-attitude-toward-playoff.html

Q: How do you feel about playoffs?

A: I really do love it. I cannot think of any reasonable expectations why we would not play a playoff at the Bowl Championship Series level as well. I do believe we should use the bowl sites, but I do not think there’s any justification for us not playing a playoff at every level of football. It’s a lot of fun, it’s just a lot of excitement, it builds the pressure, but I think it’s how the game was supposed to be played. It’s supposed to be won on the field. Mythical national championships are fun to write about, but they’re not much fun to earn.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_college/2010/03/terry-bowden-bring-on-playoffs-in-bcs.html

When the Division I-A head coaches met at the AFCA convention Tuesday, they discussed several important issues facing the sport.

There was talk about academic reform. There was talk about dealing with agents and their influence on athletes. There was talk of player safety and concussions. And of course, there was some talk about the controversial Bowl Championship Series.

American Football Coaches Association executive director Grant Teaff presented the results of a survey of all 120 Division I-A coaches during the meeting. What was found was not surprising: a majority of coaches want to keep the system the way it is.

“Right now, we have a good system,” said Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, whose team has played in three BCS championship games. “That’s not to say we won’t improve it. How it will improve over time we’ll find out, but I wouldn’t be in favor of scraping what we do. There are too many things to keep in mind, bowls, student athlete welfare, all the rest. I wouldn’t start over.”

Teaff said 73 percent of the coaches want to keep the current BCS system the way it is. He also said that 96 of the 120 coaches voted to keep transparency in the final regular-season coaches poll. And 95.7 want to maintain the final coaches poll voting the BCS champion No. 1.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/college/os-coaches-convention-issue-0113-20100112,0,1073733.story

With the BCS ramping up efforts to improve its public image, it might want to consider bringing in Alabama nose guard Terrence Cody as a spokesman.

The 365-pound All-American is no fan of the idea of a major college football playoff.

“That’s stupid,” Cody said earlier this week. “I don’t think there should be any playoff. Why should there be a playoff? I mean, in the NFL they’re getting paid to play off and stuff.”

Alabama guard Mike Johnson was lukewarm to the idea, but he could understand why others might want the BCS to expand.

“I can’t complain, coming from one of the better BCS conferences,” Johnson said. “Anytime you’re from the SEC and you go undefeated, you know you’re going to be in (the BCS championship) game. It seems we always get the benefit of the doubt.”

Longhorns defensive lineman Lamarr Houston is a playoff supporter and even offered a way to do it. He said the month most teams spend waiting to play in a BCS game could be used for playoff games.

“I’m sure if you had a couple extra bye weeks in there, maybe two weeks after the season give (the players) a break and then have a championship game in mid-January, I don’t think it would be much different from playing in a bowl game,” he said. “It’d benefit all of college football more and you could have a true champion with no complaints.”

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/college/texas/6804842.html

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — The new BCS executive director officially began his tenure Thursday by saying the often-criticized postseason represents a consensus among the 120 schools that play major college football.

Bill Hancock said a playoff at college football’s highest level would lead to more injuries, conflict with final exams, kill the bowl system and diminish the importance of the regular season.

“I know this is not completely popular, but I believe in it,” Hancock told reporters Thursday at the Football Writers Association of America awards breakfast. “I believe it is in the best interest of the universities.

“College football has never been better and I believe the BCS is part of that.”

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4805271

Some Georgia Tech and Iowa fans have been reveling in South Florida for days in advance of Tuesday’s FedEx Orange Bowl game, but local tourism officials worry that tradition will be lost if efforts to create a college football playoff are successful.

The Orange Bowl, after all, was created in 1935 to promote tourism, showcase the region’s balmy winter weather and provide a backdrop for a post-college football season party.

As the drumbeat for a college playoff system, however, grows ever louder and captures the attention of Congress and the White House, Orange Bowl officials fear their stature as annual host of one of four Bowl Championship Series games — and the national championship game every four years — could be in jeopardy.

The Orange Bowl and national championship game last year pumped an estimated $135 million into South Florida businesses, according to a study by the Sport Management Research Institute of West Palm Beach.

A playoff system — although far from a certainty — could involve on-campus games, costly last-minute cross-country travel and, if fans were lucky, more than one trip to watch their team get a shot at a championship, playoff opponents say. That could mean fewer visitors and shorter trips to South Florida in January.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/fl-bcs-playoff-0104-20100104,0,4444759.story