On Monday, USA Today published an article in which reporter George Schroeder spent a day following Arkansas athletic director, and chairman of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, Jeff Long around.
It detailed how Long watches up to 25 hours a week of game footage, even running slow mo through specific plays. On that day, he tuned in to two early games at once, including Iowa at Maryland, even though neither has any chance at all of making the playoff. He said he takes notes from what gets said on the preview shows.
The entire thing seemed like some strange public relations show of force. Yet it is apparently real. Bless Jeff Long and the other members for attempting to consume that much football, data and opinion, but it is a horribly inefficient, exhausting and pointless exercise for a group whose sole job should be to pick four teams at the end.
At least, that’s the conclusion from this week’s Dan Wetzel College Football Podcast, which features the ever entertaining and occasionally insightful Chris Vernon of ESPN Radio Memphis as a guest.
The selection committee remains the most practical way to select the participants for a four-team playoff. There really is no good way to choose four from 128. A single computer formula would be best, but no one is going for that due to college football’s long-standing misunderstanding, or outright hatred, of math.
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