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COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 16, 2013Dan RadakovichCondoleezza RiceSteve WiebergTHE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, and welcome to our final College Football Playoff teleconference of the afternoon. I'll turn it over to our executive director Bill Hancock. BILL HANCOCK: Thank you, Joni. We'd love to welcome Dan Radakovich, Condoleezza Rice, and Steve Wieberg. We have about 25 minutes for this call, and we know you want an opportunity to talk to each committee member. So we'll start off by asking each of the three of them to comment on what being on this committee means to them. Dan, we'll start with you. DAN RADAKOVICH: Thank you very much, Bill. This is a tremendous opportunity to serve with such distinguished individuals as you've been able to assemble on this committee. I've been around college football for many years. I'm humbled and honored to be part of this group. BILL HANCOCK: Thank you, Dan. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I too am very excited to serve on this committee. I'm really thrilled with the composition of the committee. I think a lot of wonderful people with integrity. I've been a college football fan all my life, and I think the opportunity for a College Football Playoff that properly balances all of the factors, including academic schedule, and the need for head‑to‑head competition, and the bowl predictions is exactly the right step. I'm just delighted to try to make it work. BILL HANCOCK: Thank you, Steve? STEVE WIEBERG: I'm a believer in this playoff. I think it's a terrific thing. To be a part of it is beyond humbling to me. I will say though what a tremendous collection of minds. It's really impressive. I feel a little bit like Ringo, and there are four Johns, four Pauls, and four Georges in the band. But Ringo was a contributor, and I plan to be a contributor. I'm just thrilled to be a part of it. Q. Professor Rice, former Secretary Rice? CONDOLEEZZA RICE: How about Condi, that's fine. Q. Condi, when your name popped up as part of this committee that was the one that drew the most attention simply because weren't an athletic director, didn't play football and weren't a coach. So I would ask, when you were approached, what was your reaction and who approached you? How does that process work? Again, what was your reaction when you were approached, and how did you weigh whether you wanted to be on this? CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Sure. I was first approached by Larry Scott the Pac‑12 commissioner, and I later had a conversation with Bob Bowlsby, the Big 12 commissioner who was the Stanford athletic director at one point. When I was approached, I said, well, tell me what it is that you think I can bring to this committee? First of all, people thought that it was important to have diversity of experience. There is a reason that corporate boards are not all CEOs. You want people to have diversity of experience. Secondly, they said we want people who will make critical judgments and can do that under pressure. I think that's going to describe this committee. They also said we want people who love college football. I absolutely fit into that category. Now as provost to Stanford, athletics reported to me for six years. So I understand the game from the administrative side to facilities and compliance issues. I hired Ty Willingham when I was provost, and, indeed, all the way back to 1988 served on the committee that brought Denny Green to Stanford as a coach. So I've been in and around the game quite a lot. I think what I can hopefully bring to this committee is critical judgment, the willingness to work hard, and some very fine people to suggest four teams on the playing field to decide a national champion. Q. Condi, obviously, I'm sure you were aware that some people questioned your specific inclusion on the committee from anything from not having been a coach or anything, but over having your hand in the dirt, so to speak. What was your reaction to that? And do you feel like you are in any way carrying the banner for female football followers? CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I've been in enough positions to respect people who have different views. You could say you should have played football to be on this committee, but, of course, not everyone on this committee, including me, has played football. I'm a student of the game, and I believe that I will work very, very hard reviewing as much film as I possibly can to try to make good judgments. I don't feel that I'm carrying a banner for anyone except those of us who love college football, and by the way, that includes a lot of women too. But for me, this is trying to get the College Football Playoff system right so that we can produce outcomes that undoubtedly will be discussions about it, but outcomes which coaches, players and indeed fans can have confidence that people of good will and integrity try to make good judgments. Q. Condi and Steve, why do you think this process can be better than the process we have now? CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, I think that we've been trying to get this right fair long time. I fully remember being a little girl when Notre Dame and Michigan State played in 1966 and Parseghian went for a tie, and there were all kinds of issues about Notre Dame eventually being crowned as champion. So there have been a lot of ways to think about how to appropriately crown a national champion. I think we now have a lot of experience. And what this committee really brings is the diversity of experience, with a diversity perspective. Some people with very deep football knowledge, and I think a group that will work very hard collaboratively to try and produce a good outcome. It really will bring the human element in. I think that's a good thing. But I look forward to these discussions, which I think will be deep and broad. And I think this is going to be a very, very good process. I also think by the way it's important that it is enhancing head‑to‑head competition between those who ultimately will play in the semifinals and then ultimately in the finals. That is an important element in bringing confidence to the National Championship picture. STEVE WIEBERG: I guess I would just add, respectively I think the BCS in a lot of ways took a bad rap. But just the fact that it's not the BCS as unpopular as it became, even when it did right, people saw it as doing wrong. I think in this case change was good. I don't want to speak for the commissioners, but I think that was part of the decision to move toward a playoff. I also like the fact that you're not going to be beholden to a mathematical formula at the end of the day. This is going to be 13 pretty good minds in a room making a very educated, very studied decision on those four teams, and you don't just have to worry about how the numbers played out. Q. Do either one of you worry about what will come from that rabid fan base when their school is left out of the playoffs? We've seen people tend to get emotional over this, obviously. Do you worry about the heat that's going to come to you as an individual and to this committee? CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I think I've experienced plenty of heat in my life. STEVE WIEBERG: I certainly am not. You kind of know that going in; and frankly, I'm such a believer in the process. I'm such a believer in the people that they've populated this committee with. It's a situation where we can't be wrong, and it's a situation where we won't be wrong. I think this committee is going to make great decisions. Q. Last thing, do you in any way see your role, having been in those high pressure situations and in the situation room as really making sure and cross‑examining everyone to make sure there aren't any blind spots in the conversation? CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, I do think it's going to be very important that all of us feel comfortable really asking hard questions of each other and probing. I think that's what brings confidence to the process. People really grappled with all the difficult issues. Whatever the outcome there will undoubtedly be disagreements with the outcome. But people know that we've really grappled with these issues in a serious way. I do think that some of the circumstances in which I found myself will help me to do that and maybe help others to do that. But all of these people in one way or another have been in high pressure situations. I think we'll work very well together for that reason. Q. Dan, you've actually been named to a couple of committees recently. Talk about this from a personal standpoint from you kind of being able to carry the torch there, but also representing the ACC and Clemson University on such a national stage? DAN RADAKOVICH: Thank you. First of all, as I said earlier, it's very humbling, and I'm very honored to be a part of this. This is about college football. While I'm currently employed at Clemson University, while being a part of this committee, we're looking to move ahead for college football and make the right decisions for that particular year as it relates to the four best teams being involved in a playoff. It is going to be a tremendous responsibility, and like Dr.Rice and Steve, we're all looking forward to the challenge and making sure that we get it right using all of the available data and information that's there for us. Q. Sort of representing the sports writers on this panel, what is your case for why a sports writer should be on this panel? What do you bring to the committee that maybe the others don't? STEVE WIEBERG: Well, I'll just take my case personally, but you could say the same thing. There are tons of people out there, the Ivan Maisels and the Tony Barnharts and so forth. I've seen probably close to 200 college football games, maybe more than that in my life, practices, 50‑some NFL games probably. Not watching those games casually, watching those games analytically, talking to coaches, talking to players. I think Dr.Rice said a little while ago student of the game. We have an educated eye. I think we're students of the game. I think that's a valuable perspective that we can bring to this. I know in my case I immersed myself in the basketball selection process shortly after the start of the USA Today well into my tenure. I'm pretty familiar with analyzing teams in that respect. Analyzing the metrics. Analyzing just the statistics that you get. That process that I know we're going to get in this process. Especially covering the game on a national basis, we're used to looking at it on a national basis, not just homing in on one team, homing in on one conference. I'm accustomed to weighing teams across conferences coast to coast. I think I'm very comfortable with this process. Q. Dan, as a current athletic director, you're one of the handful of guys that are sort of in college athletics right now so to speak. A lot of people on the committee are either out of it all together or were in it and have now stepped back. What do you feel like you and the other ADs that are currently in the trenches, so to speak, can provide to this committee in terms of perspective? DAN RADAKOVICH: I think the current athletic directors will be able to have a great pulse of not only the student‑athletes that are involved in this process, and they are, of course, the center piece associated with college football. But also understanding a lot about the inner workings of their conference, which they can bring as a perspective. But through the data that we receive, be able to look at similar data and extrapolate that to try to come up with the best four teams possible to compete for a championship. This is what we do each and every day. We're immersed in intercollegiate athletics and understand the business, so we want to be able to bring that knowledge to this committee. Q. Will the computer rankings that you now use for the BCS standings be made available to the committee members as a tool to use? BILL HANCOCK: We haven't decided that for sure, but generally the committee members will use whatever data that they want to to influence and inform their decisions. Q. There are a lot of people in the public that have a lot more sentiment toward an eight‑team playoff. I was curious if you will eventually gravitate toward that, or are you adamant three opposed to going beyond four teams? DAN RADAKOVICH: I think right now the charge of this committee is well outside of that question. We're looking to pull together the best four teams and then populate the other playoffs. Some of those other things may or may not come down the road at a different time. Certainly the management group and the commissioners and Bill will shepherd those conversations. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: This is not the mandate of the committee, but I'm very comfortable with where we are. I think the four‑team playoff is balancing a lot of factors that have to be considered, including bowl traditions and academic schedules and the like. So I think this is the way to go, and I'm really very excited about the prospect. I think it's going to be very good for college football and very good for a lot of college football fans who have been looking for this kind of head‑to‑head competition for a long time. STEVE WIEBERG: This speculation was inevitable. It started almost as soon as the four‑team playoff was announced. The only thing I would add is if we do our job correctly, we'll mitigate that. Q. For each of you guys, I wondered if you're comfortable with the factors you've laid out for teams. So much looking back and reflecting on a body of work, the one area that seems like it would be perspective in rejecting is one area where a key player were injured and not going to be able available for the playoffs. Are you comfortable with that idea? Is that a good thing or not? If you could give me your thoughts, I'd appreciate it. DAN RADAKOVICH: Well, I think that as we look at all of the data that's in front of us, strength of schedule, wins and loss, Conference Champions, key injuries to players have to filter into that final analysis. So whether we're comfortable with it or not, I believe, I don't know how relevant that is. It is part of the entire body of work for a particular team. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I think also one of the reasons that we will start doing some preparatory work as a committee is to have that time for the committee to have discussions without the pressures of actually having to choose teams, to have the discussions so that we began to get an understanding of where we all stand and how we rank those various factors. Obviously strength of schedule competitions, head‑to‑head competitions, conference champions, those are all important factors as well as the entire body of work, and as you get towards the season, injuries. It's certainly something that in an early committee meeting I would hope that we could just have a broad discussion without the pressures of having to select the teams. STEVE WIEBERG: I have seen how the basketball committee has dealt with that issue, and it's a legitimate issue. If you have a key player that's out for a game or two, and a team has lost its only game in that time and he has come back, and that team has decisively won three or four or five games and proven itself to be at least merit part of the discussion, that has to be a consideration along with everything else. Q. Condi, I know your father's love of the game kind of helped spark that same feeling with you. Is there anything in particular about what he valued in football that's kind of informed your philosophy of what you like to see and what you like in the game? CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I tell you, he valued offensive lines because that's what he played. He would always say watch the offensive line. That's the way it's happening. But actually, what my father loved about the game was the way that he felt it built young people in terms of character and leadership. Certainly I've seen that as provost of Stanford and Professor at Stanford and some of the other universities that I've dealt with. It's a special thing to be a student‑athlete. We have to protect that, and it's important to all of us who love college football to do so. But I suspect that my father would be awfully glad that this college playoff system is going to head‑to‑head competition. Many, many years ago, as I said, I watched the 1966 game with him or listened to it, I think it was actually blacked out, the Notre Dame‑Michigan State game, and he was always frustrated as a fan that we didn't have head‑to‑head competition. And I think a lot of fans felt that way. Now through a semifinal and then ultimately a final, you enhance the possibility for the best team selected to go ahead to head, and that's going to be good for college football. I think he would have appreciated that. Q. Condi and Dan, I have a couple questions first about the transparency issue. Maybe Bill referenced this early on today. In the past, I hadn't heard this: But should the committee members make their decisions public? Should we know that as far as transparency? DAN RADAKOVICH: I think that as you look at other committees, specifically the Men's Basketball Committee, there are a lot of principles the same. While we have a totally different job than them, some of the process principles remain the same. I think that as a group you'll see the outcome, but individual votes being cast, there will be so many votes, upwards of 30 to 40 different votes as we go through the process. I don't believe that those would be necessarily made public nor would that be a positive for the committee process. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I would agree with that. I think you want the committee to have some maximum flexibility to talk, agree, change minds within the committee and not have to account ballot by ballot. I am a fan of transparency in the sense that I think you want enough transparency about how this process works, and what is important to the committee that coaches, players, and fans can gain confidence in the very process that we're going to be involved in. So I think that's something we can discuss, how to fulfill the need for transparency without doing so much that you, in fact, kind of hamstring the committee's decision making process. Q. We talked a lot about the criteria involved. Let's say it's a close vote at teams 4, 5, and 6, or maybe even team 7? Is it unrealistic to consider how a team travels to a specific destination? BILL HANCOCK: How a team travels will not have any effect on who is in the playoff. That will be 1 versus 4 or 2 versus 3. When the committee comes to assign teams to the other bowls, Fiesta, Cotton and Atlanta, for example, geography will be a consideration for those assignments. Q. Okay, Bill, thanks. BILL HANCOCK: But let me add one more team too, but it will not be a consideration for which teams are elected to play in those games. The only consideration for that will be where they rank. So the highest ranked available teams will be assigned to play in those games and then the committee will make the pairings. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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