NCAA’s Endless Capacity to Control

Stupid me. Foolish me. Shame! I should have known better.

Last week I wrote about “how the tables have turned in college football”—about how schools with little or no recent history of excellence were competing for top billing on the collegiate gridiron.

I got that part right. The schools I wrote about—K-State, TCU, and Mississippi State—are shining examples. You can throw in Baylor and Michigan State, too. They’ve surpassed a number of traditional powers (and rivals)—Michigan, Florida, and Texas, to name three—teams that are sitting on the sidelines this year, away from the national limelight.

Courtesy: sports.yahoo.com

But I got another part of it wrong, really wrong—namely, how things would play out eventually in the first-ever College Football Playoff selection system. I underestimated the NCAA’s endless capacity to structure the system so that it gets outcomes it prefers. I should have known better—as a career sociologist, a person who thinks he understands human nature and how people engage in social settings.

What we got last Sunday was inevitable and predictable. Here’s why.

No longer is there a “numbers system” to rank the teams—with points revealed publicly. Now we have human beings who sit down behind closed doors—as a committee—and talk. Although they rank the teams, no numbers are revealed with ranked positions. To boot, these aren’t any human beings: many represent the Power 5 conferences, institutions that have a lot at stake in the outcome.

The most serious challenge? With four semi-finalists at least one conference would be left out of the playoff, perhaps two, if one conference was deemed worthy of having multiple teams in the final group.

Five days before the Committee announced the final rankings TCU sat at #3 and Michigan State was ranked #8. Both teams had won final games convincingly: TCU blasted Iowa State by 52 points at home and MSU beat Penn State by 24 points on the road. Meanwhile Arizona, ranked #7, was hammered by Oregon, 51-13, in the Pac-12 Championship.

The assumption made by many of us—including me—was that TCU’s performance would keep that school in the Top 4 and Michigan State would move up to #7, replacing Arizona. Those outcomes would put TCU in the national semi-final and slot MSU in the Orange Bowl against ACC runner-up, Georgia Tech.

Those aren’t preferred outcomes politically, though. Here’s why.

Courtesy: 538.com

First there’s the “TCU-Baylor problem.” Baylor beat TCU during the regular season, but the two teams ended the season tied for the conference championship. The Big 12 stuck to its conference policy. When teams tie at season’s end for the top slot, they’re crowned as co-champions: head-to-head results have no bearing on the outcome. The problem? The Committee had just ranked TCU ahead of Baylor.

Resolution came via a third party, Ohio State. Neat solution because it allowed the Committee to solve a second problem. When the Buckeyes walloped Wisconsin, 59-0, in the Big Ten Conference Championship, that win opened the door to solving both problems.

The second problem? Big Ten would have been the odd-conference-out if OSU didn’t make the Top 4. Although considered by many to be the second weakest of the Power 5 conferences, not having a team in the Final Four would have been a national embarrassment for B1G, inarguably the richest and most politically powerful of the conferences. The Big 12 is arguably the weakest politically of the Power 5 conferences, but it’s the second-ranked conference on the football field according to ESPN. The ACC is the weakest of the Power 5 (ESPN), but that conference has Florida State—an undefeated team, which is also the defending national champion.

On Selection Sunday what did we get? TCU dropped to #6, Baylor rose to #5, and OSU ended up #4. It worked out just right, didn’t it? Baylor ranked ahead of TCU and the B1G was in and the Big 12 was out. Hard to believe. Even Vegas didn’t buy it.

What about Michigan State? If MSU had gone to the Orange Bowl, then the Big Ten would have lost its spot in The Citrus Bowl (criteria based on bowl selection policies). The outcome: a B1G bowl-eligible team would have been left home for the holidays, which would have cost the conference millions (the 2015 payout for each participating Citrus Bowl team is estimated at $4.55 million).

How did the final ranking end up? The Committee pushed up Mississippi State three slots, from #10 to #7, keeping Michigan State at #8. That shift—coupled with Orange Bowl policy—placed Miss State in the Orange Bowl and put a B1G team in the Citrus Bowl. It also moved Michigan State to the Cotton Bowl.

There’s more to the story. The Orange Bowl is played in the evening (starting at 8 p.m. Eastern) on New Year’s Eve, at a time when many people get ready to go partying. It’s also the last of the three “New Year’s 6” games played that day. The Cotton Bowl, on the other hand, is played on the afternoon (Eastern Time) of New Year’s Day—in prime viewing time—as a prelude to the two national semi-final games. And there’s even more…. The Mich State-Georgia Tech game wouldn’t have had much, if any, national appeal. But a MSU-Baylor match-up (the Cotton Bowl competition) is much more attractive nationally.

It worked out great, didn’t it? Well, some analysts don’t think so.

But odds are high that little of it, perhaps none of it, would have happened without a committee. The NCAA replaced a quantitative measurement system in favor of a face-to-face process (with representatives). That shift politicizes the process big time—unless you want to ensure things turn out in preferred ways.

Courtesy: athleticbusiness,com

Consider the distribution of Power 5 teams in the “New Year’s 6” bowl games. It worked out peachy. The SEC, inarguably the best conference, has three teams in the final 12: ‘Bama, Ole’ Miss, and Mississippi State; and each of the other four conferences has two teams each. Boise State rounds out the Final 12.

The means participation and money flow as equitably as possible across the Power 5.  ESPN gets nice match-ups, too, with none better than the Alabama-Saban vs. OSU-Meyer match up.

What’s ESPN’s role in all of this? It has a monopoly, literally “owning” the television rights to the bowls. There are over 30 bowls, and ABC and the ESPN networks televise all but two. ESPN (obviously) has a huge stake on how things turn out.

To make all of this possible the Committee had to figure out a way to justify the decisions it made on the last weekend. The answer: members started by wiping the slate clean, then starting from scratch, in evaluating the teams. What they had announced just 5 days earlier didn’t matter. Really?

Here’s the real problem with all of this. Fans are being screwed by a system that’s controlled by collegiate and television elites. It’s all about optimizing money and addressing other political issues that matter only to those in power positions in the NCAA, the conferences, the TV networks, and the universities.

The problems are easy to solve, though. Increase the number of playoff teams. Use the AP Poll to rank and seed the teams (key because the schools and NCAA don’t vote in that poll). Those two moves would de-emphasize, if not eliminate, the need for a committee.

Continue to use the bowls as a feeder system through the early rounds, and on to the national semi-finals and finals. Start with 8 teams and expend it to 16 eventually. Make sure one or two slots are given to the second-tier conferences with the highest ranking teams getting the nod.

What’s the NCAA’s argument for involving fewer teams? It’s the age-old and flawed “student-athletes” argument: the season is too long and athletes have their studies. How ridiculous! Expanding the playoffs to 8 teams would add only one weekend of games; and only two weekends would be added if the slate included 16 teams.

College athletics—including millions of football fans—deserve more than what they’re getting. It’s one more reason to dislike the NCAA—what it does, what it doesn’t do, and how it goes about its business generally.

Courtesy: onenewspage.us

But Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins may be right. She writes: “It’s not that the NCAA doesn’t know what it’s doing; it’s that the NCAA doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be doing.” I came away with that same feeling as I watched Committee Chairperson Jeff Long on Selection Sunday. He didn’t come off as a political hack: he came off as suit-and-tie company man trying his best to do a good job. But I didn’t get the impression that he could think outside the boundaries of the system in which he was operating.

That’s too bad because the current system is a joke. And the joke is on college football fans everywhere.

We need to do better.

Endnote: Lauren Burns, give this column to friends at TCU and invite them to use it as wallpaper.