Despite all the assurances about the members’ college football smarts and the wealth of information to be made available to each selection committee person, somebody’s worried about the dissemination of information, or something, because here’s the next genius move:
The College Football Playoff selection committee has finalized what it calls “point persons” to gather material about teams in each conference and independent schools.
In an attempt to make sure no facts go overlooked, the 13-member selection committee assigned two people to fully review each conference and the independents…
Bill Hancock, executive director of the playoff, said conferences will designate someone — most likely their commissioner — to funnel information to their selection-committee contacts. Schools can also choose to provide information to the selection-committee contacts.
The point-person process is similar to what the NCAA basketball tournament selection committee uses. Examples of information that football playoff committee point persons may collect include injury updates, Hancock said.
Other types of information “could be things like this team maybe has played better in the last two games because the left tackle is developing,” Hancock said. “Or things like, ‘Hey, remember this team won all of its nonconference games by relying on the run and now they’ve become more diversified.'”
So what we’ve got here is people set up to receive spin from the conferences who in turn can spin the spin to the committee.
“They will not speak on behalf of any conference or institution during the committee’s deliberations or represent any conference’s or independent institution’s interests during those deliberations,” the statement said. “Their function is to gather information and ensure that it is available to the committee. Their role as a liaison to a particular conference or independent institution is purely for the purpose of objective fact-gathering.”
Yeah, right. You can sense the oncoming train wreck, can’t you?
Get The Picture 
They’re already fukin up this wet dream. Way over thinking this. How about just roll with what you’ve got, How you set it up, and make changes after this season?
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My concern is that they will screw up so badly and leave out a team that is so obviously one that should be included (like a 1 loss SEC Champion) that the public will clamor for the playoff to be expanded immediately. Maybe that’s been the plan all along.
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I can’t think of a single season in the BCS era where there were more than five teams that I thought legitimately deserved a chance to play for the national championship. This isn’t hard. It’s certainly not as hard as they’re trying to make it.
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I’ve said it before, this whole system was put in to insure the SEC would not ever under any circumstances have two teams in the playoff. If that was not the case then why did they not just expand the BCS to four teams. Too much of a chance the SEC would have two of the four. This is so transparent that the SEC commissioner has to be in on it.
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Really. I always thought the conventional complaint against the BCS system was that there was frequently/possibly/occasionally a third team that deserved a shot at the title, but was left in the cold. Four team playoff? Fine by me, just take the top 4 of the BCS and be done with it.
Of course. you might end up with 3 SEC teams that way. If your goal is keeping multiple SEC teams out of the picture, by all means keep objective criteria out of the mix.
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It’s objective if it comes out in my favor.
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Alabama will probably hire 45 consultants to be their point people!
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I was actually thinking the other day that it might be a good idea to assign each top 8 or so team to 2 members, and have 1 present arguments for and 1 present arguments against to the committee. But that doesn’t sound like what they’ll be doing….
Is it too late to petition the committee to mandate Bill Connelly presentations at each meeting?
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The distinguished College Football Playoff selection committee is going to end up looking like NASCAR with its in-season rule changes.
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What a debacle.
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My concern is the level of influence these people will have on the decision. How is everyone gonna feel about someone with ties to the University of Alabama being responsible for feeding information about UGA to the committee when its between Bama and Georgia for one of those playoff spots?
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Leave out the point persons. Just give the committee members a stash of doobies and let them smoke over it. When the giggling subsides and the four teams have been selected, send out Condi to make the announcement. If the words, “Georgia’s in” are spoken, then it worked. If the words “Agnes Scott’s in” followed by muffled laughter, then it didn’t work. But still leave the point persons out. They’ll do nothing but monopolize the dope.
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Well at least it would be a fun way to decide.
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Can I get a mention from Cojo? Even better, let’s install him as the liaison.
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Y’all are way overblowing this
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I’m just uncomfortable with the idea of people feeding highly subjective information like the examples suggested (“the left tackle has developed nicely…” Wtf??) To the people making decisions. They’re setting it up to over think it and the more they over think it the higher the chance they’ll screw it up.
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Also, what happened to the committee members being “students of the game?” I dare say 13 of us regular readers of GTP could select 4 teams fairly and adequately without having people “feed us” information. What made these committee members qualified again?
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Theater of the Absurd…
“theater in which naturalistic conventions of plot and characterization are ignored or distorted in order to convey the irrationality of existence and the isolation of humanity.”
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Let’s hope Condi gets better intel than she did in 2001.
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