Last Word<\/em> reached out to five college football coaches on Wednesday afternoon, asking about the agreement to the 24-school playoff. We heard back from two and promised to keep their names and schools out of the article.<\/p>\n\u201cThe calendar issues are the most important topic to us because they impact the entire sport all year round,\u201d said a Southwest-based FBS coach. If it means we have to start earlier and cut some weeks in order to end on time, then taking the expanded playoff is worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A coach from an East Coast FBS school replied, \u201cThe playoff expansion is going to happen anyway. The coaches have no ability to stop that. So let\u2019s make sure we are getting other things that do matter to us, like a change in the calendar. There would only be a few teams playing the first and second week in January, and the rest will have moved on to what\u2019s next.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both coaches told us they did not like the playoff expansion or see a need to water down the current product.<\/p>\n
Who Likes the Expanded Playoff?<\/h3>\n
In fact, about the only ones who do like expanding the playoff are conference commissioners (because more of their schools will get in), and the television networks, because they seem determined to squeeze the golden goose until it croaks. The only upside from the viewer’s standpoint is that with the expansion, ESPN is likely to have to subcontract some of the games to TBS, TNT, or Fox.<\/p>\n
The statement from the AFCA says the postseason should end no later than the second Monday in January. \u201cFuture playoff models should maximize the number of participants while honoring the proposed completion date.\u201d<\/p>\n
Addressing College Football’s Proposed Changes<\/h2>\n
In order to get through an expanded playoff and finish earlier, many changes will be needed. What was Week 0 for a handful of schools will have to be Week 1 for everyone. Eliminating the conference championship games has been years overdue. The money once pulled in by the conferences has diminished over time, and the risk to the schools is no longer needed.<\/p>\n
There will have to be adjustments to the bowl schedules. Some will have to be sacrificed. But how many years have many been complaining that there are too many? And the bowls that are tied into the quarterfinals and semifinals will have to be reconfigured. The Rose Bowl would have to become an annual semifinal in order to keep the New Year\u2019s timeframe in place.<\/p>\n
And the exclusive window for the Army-Navy game stays in place. Although it might not be the only game that day\u2026just in that timeframe.<\/p>\n
The ability to manage the game is a year-round proposition for football staffs. But the horse is out of the barn when it comes to playoff expansion. It\u2019s not what\u2019s best for the game. But that makes it all the more important to fix other elements that are amiss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EDITORIAL: A college football coaches\u2019 committee has put forth a recommendation on significant changes to the sport\u2019s calendar. But college football’s proposed changes have set the pants of CFB pundits on fire. It is because within that recommendation is an acceptance of an expanded college football playoff. Coaches’ Proposed Changes The American Football Coaches\u2019 Association […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":85054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1479],"tags":[102,34767,36098,18,20],"class_list":["post-87481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-editorials","tag-acc","tag-afca","tag-big-10","tag-big-12","tag-sec"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87481"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87486,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87481\/revisions\/87486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}