Slive Pumps the Brakes Somewhat on Playoff Talk
by Year2 on Feb 10, 2012 10:00 AM EST
in SEC Football
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PrintOne of the immediate lessons coming out of the 2011 college football season is that a playoff is coming to the Football Bowl Subdivision. Even the traditionally anti-playoff Big Ten has leaked a plus one plan, though it's more to make the conference look like its not standing in the way of progress than anything. The wheels are turning and momentum is gaining.
It's kind of odd then to see Mike Slive of all people, who proposed a plus one back in 2008, trying to pump the brakes on the playoff speculation:
"Really a lot of this discussion is premature, and I want to respect the process that we're in," Slive told members of the Nashville Sports Council during a question-and-answer session. "We've had four-year formats since we started. We've done it on the basis of four years, so each four-year period you have to sit down and decide what format is going to be going forward. So we have decided to sit down and talk about this from every different side"...
"What would [a possible playoff format] look like and whether it's actually going to happen, all of that is premature," Slive said. "I think we need the time to sit down and analyze it. We need time to take ideas back to our respective conferences and ... a decision to be made sometime later this year as we begin to talk about the ... next format."
Given that Slive is nothing if not a lawyer, it's actually not so strange at all when you think about it. There is a negotiating process, and by God, they're going to do some negotiating. Calm down people, nothing to see here just yet.
Slive has also been an under-promise/over-deliver kind of commissioner, preferring to handle things in the background before making any public statements. Think about how conference expansion went. Every statement from the SEC attempted to pour cold water on the fires of speculation right up until the announcements and helmet-trading ceremonies were made. Plus, his policies for the league about coaches and schools handling their grievances in private first rather than in public (shout out, Lane Kiffin!) also reflect that instinct of his.
Slive and the SEC are certainly not going to be standing in the way of a college football playoff. I think the commissioner just doesn't want to get people's hopes up that a format will be announced later this spring. The current BCS contract runs for another two seasons, and it may take most of that time to hammer out details among the various conferences and their disparate desires.
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its good to know he's focusing
on the right thing. Hopefully that’s making sure our regular season makes sense.
by Mark Mandingo on Feb 10, 2012 10:44 AM EST via mobile reply actions
What do you see as the end result?
A plus one that Slive likes, or the four team playoff with a neutral site championship that Jim Delany dropped a few weeks back?
"You're pissed because we went after a committed guy? Guess what, we got 9 guys who better go do it again. Do it a little harder next time." Ohio State Coach Urban Meyer.
The Big Ten’s leaked proposal is a plus one. What Slive and Swofford proposed back in 2008 was having the plus one take place as a part of the BCS rather than separate from it as the Big Ten’s plan does it. That’s the only main difference between the two schemes.
Ultimately I think we’ll get something closer to what the Big Ten leaked. I’ve seen a number of tweets from journalists around the country saying that most people are receptive to the semifinals-on-campus aspect of the Big Ten plan, and as I said earlier this week, that’s a winning idea. I don’t know how married Slive is to his four-year-old proposal; I’d guess not very given that he’s a smart guy and that proposal had some drawbacks to it.
Whatever they do decide upon, I don’t think we’ll be able to point to it and say it’s the “______ plan” that went into effect. All the power brokers will get together and hammer something out as a group.
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I'm truly amazed
at how the big ten sites have successfully spun this. It went from “last road block cleared” to “Jim Delaney leader in innovative ideas to modernize post season football”. Kudos big ten blogs. And I mean that without sarcasm (mostly).
by Mark Mandingo on Feb 10, 2012 12:25 PM EST via mobile up reply actions 1 recs
I'm not using it as spin
or crediting Delany. It just seems the best way to discern between the two.
"You're pissed because we went after a committed guy? Guess what, we got 9 guys who better go do it again. Do it a little harder next time." Ohio State Coach Urban Meyer.
it less you
More of what I read at OTE and in the comments in the “consider them rolled” post. Unless that whole thing was sarcastic and I just missed it.
by Mark Mandingo on Feb 10, 2012 12:38 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Yeah, I'm with you there
Personally, I think the semifinal games on campus is the best option—using the plus one model where the major bowls are the semi-final locations would be asking too much for fanbases to travel to. And I can see a compromise where they do the semi-finals on campus, and then rotate between the BCS bowls (and maybe add the Cotton Bowl as a location to get Texas on board, because you know somewhere Jerry Jones is in somebody’s ear about using his stadium in this).
"You're pissed because we went after a committed guy? Guess what, we got 9 guys who better go do it again. Do it a little harder next time." Ohio State Coach Urban Meyer.
Ted,
how important is it that the B1G keeps the Rose Bowl?
"Tommy, completions are way more awesome when you force them through triple coverage." ----Brett Farve (look-a-like)
For me, it's huge
But I’m in my mid 40’s, and I grew up with it. I get that the younger generation doesn’t have the affinity to the old conference tie ins and bowls that I do, and I get that times change. But the Rose Bowl brings a lot of sentimental emotion to B1G fans, because it was the first bowl, it has a lot of tradition and history, and the B1G is inextricably tied to it. Is that carrying over to the younger generation? I don’t know.
I know a lot of people outside of the B1G don’t understand, and don’t like Delany because of his doggededness in keeping the Pac-12/B1G/Rose Bowl together. And I get that, but for me, that’s why I love Delany as a commissioner. He gets that college football is a business, but he also understands that what makes college football so completely freaking awesome is the traditions we hold to the teams we cheer, and the conference that they’re in.
And for a lot of fans of the B1G, one of those non-negotiable traditions is the Rose Bowl. I know this will come off sounding like sour grapes based on the SEC’s recent domination of the BCS, but it really isn’t. What your conference has done is as impressive a thing as I’ve seen. But I still would rather my team (Ohio State) go to the Rose Bowl and win it than play in and win some manufactured championship game that some computer picks the two teams for. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of OSU’s BCS title in 2002 (and yeah, just as embarrassed about ‘06 and ’07), and it was a thrilling game and all that, but there’s just something so much more satisfying to me in kicking the hell out of Michigan and then winning the Rose Bowl.
Is that stupid? Taken in today’s context, yeah, I’m sure a lot of folks think it is. But I am also in the minority of folks that think that college football should go back to the old bowl tie in system that we had before the Bowl Alliance and then the BCS.
But I also know that my opinion, while still in the majority, is losing popularity because of the younger generations of fans that never grew up with the conference affiliation to the old bowl system, and that within 15-20 years those affiliations will more than likely be a thing of the past.
"You're pissed because we went after a committed guy? Guess what, we got 9 guys who better go do it again. Do it a little harder next time." Ohio State Coach Urban Meyer.
Thanks,
and for what it’s worth I never thought it to be sour grapes. I’m a fan of tradition, so I can understand not wanting to let go of the Rose Bowl.
"Tommy, completions are way more awesome when you force them through triple coverage." ----Brett Farve (look-a-like)
I definitely agree that on-campus is the best.
Slive may have been guilty of thinking inside the box too much with the plus-one system he proposed. I mean to say that he was trying to force a playoff to fit in our current system. It either hadn’t occurred to him at the time or he didn’t think that the CFB world would support on campus playoff games.
I wonder if Delany got the idea from the Pac-12 Championship Game.
And yeah, I see the Cotton Bowl being involved in the future, too. That’s a pretty good game and a fantastic venue. It almost seems inevitable, even without Texas’s input.
- FOW
by skandrewj62j on Feb 14, 2012 3:02 PM EST up reply actions
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