ATLANTA – Eight is not great – at least, not in the minds of the power brokers who run college football’s postseason. College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock didn’t surprise anyone in his position on possible expansion of the four-team tournament to decide the national champion:
It is not happening.
“There is no talk about expansion among the university presidents and the commissioners,” Hancock said. “They are quite happy with the four-team playoff.”
The CFP will enter its fifth season (of a 12-year contract) using the same selection process: a 13-member committee will choose from the “four best teams.” It’s a subjective process that has not generated anything near the controversy that once attended the Bowl Championship Series, the CFP’s predecessor.
Two SEC teams made the bracket last season, and both advanced to the championship game, but there was not significant outcry for change – as there was after the 2011 season, when Alabama and LSU met in the BCS championship game; shortly afterward, the playoff was birthed. But last season’s all-SEC national title game has not prompted similar momentum for change.
“The CFP works. It works well,” Hancock said. “(Limiting it to) four teams keeps the focus on this wonderful regular season, the most meaningful and compelling in all of sports. Four lets us keep the bowl experience for thousands of student-athletes. Four keeps college football within the framework of higher education.”
Hancock added: “It has been a very good game, good year, good four years, for this game that we love so much.”
