Florida’s Scott Stricklin Frustrated by CFP Vision
Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin is surprised the College Football Playoff format wasn’t expanded for this upcoming season.
“I’m frustrated that did not happen,” Stricklin said on Monday’s episode of Sportscene with Steve Russell. “The math for what we’re trying to do does not work.
“There are roughly 70 power conference teams. In basketball, there’s a little more because of the Big East, but there’s a 68-team field and about half the field goes to automatics [conference champion bids].
“The majority of the other half [of bids] goes to those power conference teams. So about 50% of those teams have a chance to compete for a championship.”
In other sports such as baseball and softball, 50% of “power conference teams” having a chance to compete for a championship is almost the baseline, Stricklin noted.
“There’s no question that the most important sport for driving the whole enterprise is college football,” he said. “With all these schools that invest a ton of money into the sport, there are 11 right now that get to go play in the postseason.”
That percentage is around 15%, compared to the 50% or higher in other sports. Stricklin shared his vision to fix the math.
“I think we should do away with the conference championship games. I think we should have a 24 or 32-team field,” Stricklin said.
Stricklin acknowledges that this sounds egregious to some people, but he says that in this format, 50% of the power conference teams would be accommodated and the group of six schools would still have an opportunity to compete.
“Sixteen is better than 12 and 24 is better than 16, and I can go on and on,” Stricklin said.
Russell and others said it would add too many games in the current college football framework. Stricklin says that in his model, by getting rid of the conference championship game and using that weekend for CFP games, teams that make a run would still be playing 16 or 17 games in a season. He says that if college football finds a window for the Army/Navy game, the season will be right on schedule with where it is.
“It’s just a better use of the calendar,” he said.
Stricklin explained the sports broadcast act with the NFL and how they can show Saturday games on the third Saturday in December. The current schedule uses the second Saturday in December for the Army/Navy game, which Stricklin argues could be used more efficiently.
He then explained how the seeding for the CFP is hard based on how small the field and sample size are.
“I think it’s hard when you’re relying on a committee for your seeding,” Stricklin said. “Football, you only have 12 games that you think about; basketball, there’s 30-something games and a 68-team field.
“A committee is a really crummy way to determine a postseason tournament.”
In the NFL and men’s basketball, once the regular season ends, the seedings are set for the NFL playoffs and the SEC and other conference tournaments, Stricklin said.
Stricklin followed up on his vision to disband the conference championship games and explained how he still values SEC championships.
“There are two numbers that we and the UAA track across all facilities here, SEC championships and NCAA championships,” Stricklin said.
He said the football schedule changing to nine SEC games helps give an extra data point to determine the SEC champion.
“For years, we determined the SEC champion based on your regular-season conference standings. It’s how we do it in every other sport.
“I think we can do that in football if we ever decide to go to a playoff model that serves us better than having conference championship games.”
The whole interview can be found on WRUF Home of the Gators YouTube.
Category: College Football, Gator Sports, Gators Football
