College football playoff panel can't solve 2013's potential problem

November 12, 2013|By Chris Dufresne

Jeff Long is the chairman of the 13-member college football playoff committee. (Tony Gutierrez / Associated…)

It's too bad we can't junk the last year of the BCS and move right to the four-team playoff.

While it may not be contractually possible, the 13-members of the new selection committee are ready for the challenge.

The group met formally for the first time Monday in Washington, D.C. It was mostly a photo-op for the media and a chance for members to meet.

The selection committee, starting next year, will pick the top teams for a four-team playoff. Committee chairman Jeff Long, the AD at Arkansas, said the panel will not use this year for any mock simulations.

This year, though, could be a good test case should four teams end up undefeated. At this time, though, one-loss Stanford is ahead of Baylor for the No. 4 spot in the BCS standings.

"That," Long told reporters, "is not in our purview."

The panel will replace the BCS, which ends this year after 16 seasons of picking the top two teams using a combination of polls and computers.

Starting next year, there will be no more BCS standings released weekly starting in mid-Oct. Instead, the panel will release four top 25 power rankings during the course of the season.

“I think there is going to be a lot of times there is more than one right answer,” Steve Wieberg, a committee member and former USA Today sportswriter, said. “It will be up to us to come up with the best right answer. And it will be defensible.”

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