Jul 23, 2013; Dallas, TX, USA; Oklahoma Sooners head coach Bob Stoops speaks to the media during the Big 12 media days at the Omni Dallas Hotel. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
The new college football playoffs will replace the BCS format in 2014, and while it has fans excited, Oklahoma Sooners head coach Bob Stoops is still worried about the format. Stoops’ biggest worries concerns who will be part of the College Football Committee that chooses the four teams that will play for the national championship.
As Stoops has said on numerous occasions, while the computers involved in the BCS may not be perfect, they have one major advantage. They take out the bias and favoritism that comes when humans choose who plays for the big crown. With only four teams playing for the national title, it will be humans who choose which teams get left out of the equation at the end of the year.
It is no different than when humans chose who played in the bowl games at the end of the year based on their personal preference rather than based on the BCS ranking the best teams at the end of the season. While the men who choose the four teams will surely promise to choose only the four best teams worthy of making it, there will always be a suspicion of human politics as men play favorites with their preferred schools and ignore those they hold personal grudges against.
Bill Hancock is the executive director of the College Football Playoff and he said that the choices will be made without prejudice and points to the NCAA Tournament in basketball. He said that the football selection committee will succeed for the same reason that the basketball committee does.
“I understand people who think there may be biases,” Hancock said. “But believe me, we did away with it in basketball.
While that is nice to hear, this is a completely different circumstance. In basketball, the difference between team No. 65 that makes it into the tournament and team No. 66 that doesn’t make it won’t make the headlines in the paper. The difference between the so-called 4th best football team and the 5th place football team will cause a lot more hard feelings and accusations of favoritism.
“Does everybody have bias or not?” Stoops asked. “Does everybody have to answer to somebody … the paycheck you’re getting from whoever?
According to Hancock, they will eliminate that by having around 15 people on the committee to choose the four teams in the College Football Playoffs, so one person can’t sway the vote with his sole vote. If a member of the committee is linked to the Oklahoma Sooners, he will excuse himself from the voting concerning the Sooners.
He also said people will be chosen from different occupations, from coaches to ADs to former players to former media members. Plus, they will be from all over the country. Whether or not this will be a success or not is still to be determined. One hopes the College Football Playoffs will finally be the way to give the world a fair and honest national champion, because nothing has been perfect in the century of college football play so far.
"Follow Shawn S. Lealos on Twitter @sslealos."