They haven’t even settled on the selection committee details, and Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly is already indulging his inner Jim Boeheim with a little playoff expansion talk.
“I don’t know that four is where we’re going to finish this thing. I think it’s a great entry into where we want to go,” said Kelly, who toured the stadium in preparation for his team’s Oct. 5 matchup in Cowboys Stadium against Arizona State. “Moving forward, I think the focus … will be on whether it’s eight or 16 (teams) or whatever the number is.”
Whatever, indeed. One thing I know. A bigger postseason generally means more coaching security, as in “how can you fire the guy who took ’em to the playoffs?”.
Suckers.
Get The Picture 
I’m sure he is for a larger playoff; Notre Dame could go 6-6 and be a member of a 16 team format. I don’t think this is that much of an exaggeration; an 8-4 ND would get preferential seeding.
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Why bother? He didn’t show up in Miami last year. His problem isn’t lack of familiarity with the venue, it is a media that consistently puts ND in a position to fail by overrating them.
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His and ND’s only chance to get into the 4 games was leached from their emotional pot of clay during the NC when it was apparent they were outclassed, contrary to what ESPN pitchmen had sold to the country’s Catholics (plus a few Protestants) as a great CFB team with a Heisman Candidate LB.
This year they won’t have the benefit of the Coach’s Poll and diminishing support from the pundits. They see that their travails are only beginning as they go into the next several years. Absolutely, they are scurrying for favor anywhere they can find it because the NC was one of their last gifts. Of course they would like it diluted past any sane number(8) that could represent a championship playoff level.
Funny how anyone trying to manipulate public perception of the Four Game Choose in transit (FGCit) as such a stable model and using any choice involving 8 games (accompanied by the fear-inducing 16 games in the same breath) to manipulate us into resisting a true playoff. Publically the 8-game model is beginning to get attention, no matter the fear mongers who have resisted embracing it as a final and stable number. More people who think for themselves are entering the CFB fan picture and are reading past the predigested opinion that flavors the status quo. They are making up their own minds and expressing that 8 teams are representative of CFB.
ND will not be unhappy if there are 8 teams to choose from, but they won’t be happy either; not until there is more dilution to include them and put them in a playoff. What does this say about the Coach’s idea of where he would fare in a poll not run by the Big 10 and influenced by ESPN? Sounds to me like he will be fighting for Spot 15 with all his might.
I confess that part of my reasoning for the Top-8 poll teams is to get as many SEC teams in as can rank in the Top-8. So shoot me if we get three per year into the NC instead of two. We should be Delany’s worst nightmare proactively instead of waiting for him to pull the trigger on another Big10 scheme.
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Please include the ending to the 1st sentence, 3rd para, as: “…are always referenced here.”
Thanks.
Think it’s time to have an evening smoke after screwing that up..
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I spaced the other day and posted that I didn’t want to see the SEC go to 14 teams. And that was after giving the Senators SEC divisional realignment idea a lot of thought. You’re not going to top that…. 🙂
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No job security in expansion. Every NCAA basketball tournament expansion just magnifies the sin of not making the post-season. How much of the football TV money gets thrown at basketball coaching turnover in the bottom half of BCS conferences?
I know, probably not as much combined as Tennessee and Auburn have paid people to not coach football in the past decade.
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