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COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 16, 2013Barry AlvarezMichael GouldOliver LuckTyrone WillinghamTHE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, and welcome to our second teleconference for the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. I will now turn it over to executive director, Bill Hancock. BILL HANCOCK: Hello, everybody. We'd like to welcome Barry Alvarez, Michael Gould and Oliver Luck to this call. We have 25 minutes for this call, and we know each of you want an opportunity to talk to each committee member, so we'd like to start off by just asking each of the three of them to comment about what being on this committee means to them. Coach Alvarez, we'll start with you. BARRY ALVAREZ: I've been committed to college football my entire adult life, and this is a humbling opportunity for me to give back. BILL HANCOCK: Thank you, Barry. General Gould? MICHAEL GOULD: Likewise, football has been my passion for many, many years. I was fortunate enough to have played and coached at the college level and just recently retired as the superintendent as the Air Force Academy, and I am absolutely honored to be a part of this robust group, and I look forward to the good things we're going to be doing. BILL HANCOCK: Thank you, Mike. Oliver Luck? OLIVER LUCK: Thank you, Bill. Let me first thank you and our chairman for your leadership and the conference commissioners. I'm honored beyond measure to be a part of this group. As a former player, I really feel as though I got hundreds of thousands of former college players though the game has been behind, not only me, but behind the entire committee. Q. Barry, in the divisional era which has basically been I guess the BCS era and you have divisions of conferences, we've seen the best team in the league may not even be the champion of its own division. What kind of complications do you see for the committee figuring out the best team from a league may not be the outright conference champion? BARRY ALVAREZ: That's a good question. I think we're given the responsibility to select the best four teams in the country and one of our criteria, I think, as we set up our criteria, some of this will be laid out. But I know one of the criteria would be conference champions. But I know there are situations with a one‑loss team where they may not have played in the Conference Championship Game, and still have an opportunity to play in a National Championship Game. I think all of those things come into play. That's our responsibility to take in all considerations, take in all the facts and then make a decision. Q. Is that kind of a common sense thing though that sometimes, hey, look, this team has one loss. The Conference Champion upset a team and it's got three losses? Obviously, if you're going to give way to a Conference Champion, but not in a situation like that? BARRY ALVAREZ: Absolutely. I think common sense and us having that opportunity. Bringing the human element to help make the decision, I think really clarifies this, can clarify this. One of the things we talked about and I think is important is that we have transparency. Q. You talked about the transparency, and it seems like there is going to be a lot of different things, different variables that can come into play. How important is it to have that transparency, considering that there isn't a set standard of using RPI or something like that? BARRY ALVAREZ: I think we'll come out with the factors of our criteria. What is important, what are the decisions will be made upon. I would guess that when we come out with a ranking, that our representative, Jeff, would stand up and possibly Steve Wieberg would explain what came into the decision making, what were the criteria that allowed us to make those decisions? Q. General Gould, I just wanted to know how your involvement in this group came about. Were approached? Did you approach the committee? What was the genesis of all of that? MICHAEL GOULD: It was Craig Thompson, commissioner of the Mountain West Conference nominated me as an at large member after first asking if I'd be willing and able to make the time commitment, and I got really excited about it, thanked him for the offer. Of course, I think you may have seen in the announcement earlier, there was a long vetting process, a lot of nominees. I was as pleased as anything to get through the screening process and have Bill ask me to serve. Everybody has their affiliation from their schools that they either worked or played or administered. But we are really in this for the good of college football and for the fans and the athletes. And we'll look at it from a large picture and do what's best for the larger picture, not just any particular conference or particular school. Q. Oliver, is there anything in particular over the years that the BCS has evolved that you thought could either be improved or enhanced? And do you see the committee in the playoff format as kind of an avenue to doing that? OLIVER LUCK: I think as our Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby often says, college football change is evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary. I think the BCS is a tremendous improvement over what we had prior to that. I think this playoff system is a significant improvement over the BCS. We've watched 24 teams and implement fans, players, coaches alike will be very happy with it. I think that it's a very solid system, and we're all going to celebrate the last year of the BCS this year and focus on No. 1 versus No. 2. But I think the system that's been put in place and devised is very strong and very solid. MICHAEL GOULD: I would also say just the fact that we have a committee made up of people from various walks of life with lots of experience in college football, but experiences elsewhere, we should be able to add that collaboration and human element that Barry talked about and improve on what we got from the BCS rankings. We will use everything that's available. Lots of data is out there. But being able to get together and talk through and refine our criteria, I think, will be an improvement. Who knows where it may go from here. Q. Barry or Oliver, we know you have very time consuming jobs and specifically college football Saturday knowing you're hosting a game. Obviously, you know the duties of going through that. How do you see this fitting in and finding the time to be able to watch all the top teams around the country? BARRY ALVAREZ: I think we all know that it's going to take time, it's going to be time consuming. As I understood it, we'll be at our own games; but we'll watch tapes and we will have access to tapes to watch film and process that before we meet. We'll see those on a weekly basis. As far as the time demand, once we make a commitment that we're going to do this‑‑ you don't punch a clock in the businesses that I've ever been in in coaching and athletic directing, you just go until you get the job done. And I'll just go about this the same way. I've made the commitment, and whatever the time it takes to get it done, we'll get it done. OLIVER LUCK: I think all of us on the committee recognize the fairly high workload that this would entail. I think everybody on the committee is committed to performing that workload. I think I'd echo Barry's remarks and add one thing, the technology and shrinking those games down to the actual plays, I think, will allow us to probably watch a lot more football than the average fan. We'd sit through a three, three and a half hour game. But I think everybody on the committee is very aware of the significant time commitment. I've talked to a number of folks, certainly on the basketball committee, and they've shared their experiences and long nights watching games with three or four, and we'll have some of that as well. BILL HANCOCK: I wanted to welcome Tyrone Willingham. Tyrone, as we did with the others at the top of the call, we'd like to welcome you and ask you to describe for the reporters on the line what does being on this committee mean to you? TYRONE WILLINGHAM: Well, first of all, Bill, thank you, being part of the committee is a really special honor. Being nominated and working through a large group, as I understand it, to be one of the final committee members is just an unbelievable honor. I'd also say it's a responsibility to the game of football, which I've been blessed to participate in every game at Michigan State as a walk‑on, been a coach, assistant coach, and head coach. So it's been a marvelous opportunity for me. So it's a way to kind of give back and help football and other committee members. It's about doing what is best for the game of football. Q. Oliver, why is 13 the right number, do you think? And what about the make‑up of this committee gives you confidence that the process will be better than the process we have now. OLIVER LUCK: I think 13 makes sense. It's not too big of a group, not too small of a group. I think the individuals that are in this group are individuals of high character, high integrity, smart. I think we had 230‑some years of college football experience amongst the 13. I think they are folks on the committee, every one of us, who are accustomed to making tough decisions. Certainly as we go through process, there will be some tough decisions. I've got 100% confidence in this group in terms of making the right decisions and doing the right thing in terms of our responsibility. Q. When you said that the committee stands to be a better process than the one we have now, what bothers you the most about the system that we have right now? OLIVER LUCK: Well, I'll just leave my remarks focused on this committee and the work that we are tasked to do. I'd prefer not to comment specifically on anything that's gone on in the past. I think this committee is really a top‑notch, first‑class group, great character folks. People who love the game, respect the game, know how tough the game is to play and play well, coaches who have done a marvelous job, Hall of Famers, guys who have played professionally as well. I think this group in the process, most importantly is the improvement over what we had. No disrespect to the BCS. It's a good system as well. But it will be a major improvement of what we had prior to the BCS. Q. Barry and Oliver, I was curious how you see the strength of schedule component factoring into your decisions? BARRY ALVAREZ: As I understand, that was one of the first criteria that was discussed. I think everybody agreed that strength of schedule should definitely be one of the top considerations as you evaluate the teams. OLIVER LUCK: I would echo Barry's remarks that obviously who you play and when you play those teams are going to be very important topics of discussion, and rightfully so, because it goes a long way to determine strength. But certainly strength of schedule will be one of our key criteria. Q. Oliver, I know this isn't the best place to ask, but your name's come up for the Texas AD job. Have you been approached and are you interested in that job? OLIVER LUCK: I'd prefer not to comment on that. Q. The SEC set a record with a number of teams in the top 25. How do you deal with the significant SEC bias and people thinking this is the best football in the country and just having their own network? People are going to be beating down on you about the SEC. How do you insulate yourself from that? BARRY ALVAREZ: I think everyone has a network now. I think that's our responsibility to judge the teams as we see them. We're going to have access to their games. We're going to have access to multiple statistics, and that's our responsibility to judge the best games? Q. Barry and Tyrone, I was doing national radio when you were coaching at Wisconsin, and I remember sitting down and talking to you about the playoff system. Were you in favor of the playoff system when you were coaching? And maybe Tyrone can also step in and talk about that as well, and even Oliver too. Were all of you in favor of the playoff years ago? If not, are you pleased to see it come about? BARRY ALVAREZ: I think years ago when you talked about playoffs, you thought the reference was to something very similar to what the FBS has? That type of thing where you go into a total playoff system, not a four‑team playoff. I don't ever remember that being discussed up until this past year. I think the BCS, we all know the BCS has criticized‑‑ as much criticism as it had, still helped college football become more popular than it's ever been. I think adding four teams and having a playoff with four teams gives you a truer champion and will help it be even more popular. TYRONE WILLINGHAM: I think the keyword is evolution. This is something going and coming, and where we are now is the opportunity to take the next best step. I'm excited to be a part of it. And I'm excited to see us make this work. Q. Oliver, as well, might you comment on that? Were you always in favor of the playoff system? OLIVER LUCK: I would echo both Barry and Ty's comments. I think having a semifinal system really will add to the excitement and the interest and give us a true champion, not that they didn't have one before, even going back to the '70s or '80s. But I do think this system is well thought out; it's solid and it's an improvement. Q. Barry and Tyrone, both of you have spent a lot of time as head football coaches and obviously that means viewing video extensively. Do you see yourself, as this goes forward, as relying heavily on the so‑called eyeball test with video as opposed to the advanced metrics that are now out there? TYRONE WILLINGHAM: I would hate to say that there would just be one thing that I'd use. I think it's going to be really fairness in this situation. There are going to be so many tools out there to look at if we'll just take the time, and we being me, if I'll just take the time look at those, and along with the eyeball test, I think it will give me an opportunity to dig even deeper than I've done with just the previous years of just looking at things on tape. BARRY ALVAREZ: I agree with that, Ty. You have the numbers available, but the other criteria as far as similar opponents and the other things that we're taking a look at, strength of schedule, et cetera. I think everything has to be taken into consideration. Q. When you were approached about doing this, clearly, there was a big time commitment involved. Was there any specification of lack of a better word of how deep that time commitment would be. TYRONE WILLINGHAM: When I was approached, this was such a great opportunity. This was such a great step for college football, that you couldn't say no regardless of how much time you thought it would be. I was so excited and felt honored to be able to give back to football in this manner, that if it had taken 24 hours a day, I think I would still feel moved in the same direction. BARRY ALVAREZ: The only consideration, I also was very honored, but I did have to have consideration from one person and the okay from one person, and that was my wife. TYRONE WILLINGHAM: Barry, you've always been smarter than me. Q. Barry, there's been a lot of discussion about strength of schedule. With your big going to nine conference game, do you think you'll see more non‑conference games like you're scheduling with LSU down the road and maybe less than the Big Ten's already done getting away from the FBS leagues? BARRY ALVAREZ: Our league has pretty much made that commitment that we do want to strengthen our schedule. We're going to nine conference games. It's going to be very difficult, particularly when you're playing five home games one year, four the next. All of us want seven home games. If you're just trying to choose schedule of FBS, the numbers limit you. It's very difficult to do that, but we'll attempt to do that from 2016 on. If you want to be in the game, obviously, you've got to strengthen your schedule. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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