The Irresponsible — And Unnecessary — Behavior of the College Football Playoff Committee

By Ken Reed

I have witnessed a lot of irresponsible behavior in SportsWorld during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the actions of the College Football Playoff (CFP) committee take the cake for the most unnecessary, irresponsible behavior during the pandemic.

The CFP committee, led by executive director Bill Hancock, insists on meeting in person for the next five weeks during a raging pandemic. The committee members, which include several college athletic directors, fly in from all over the country to meet for 12-14 hours over two days, in a hotel meeting room.

All this risky behavior to come up with a Top 25 list?

It’s important to note that these rankings are meaningless until the final one, which sets the postseason matchups at the FBS level.

These weekly meetings could easily be conducted over Zoom, but Hancock argues that would simply be unbearable.

“The most robust conversation we all have is face to face. Our meeting runs 7 to 8 hours on Monday and 3 to 4 more hours on Tuesday. Anyone who has done a Zoom meeting knows it’s fine for an hour, but not a 12-hour meeting,” said Hancock, regarding the need for the committee to meet in person.

Remember, these face-to-face meetings are taking place at a time when the CDC is discouraging travel. Positive Covid cases and hospitalizations are spiking across the country.

Here are the CDC guidelines on travel:

Travel increases your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19. Staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.

You can get COVID-19 during your travels. You may feel well and not have any symptoms, but you can still spread COVID-19 to others. You and your travel companions (including children) may spread COVID-19 to other people including your family, friends, and community for 14 days after you were exposed to the virus.

Instead of supporting these CFP boondoggles, the ADs on the committee should be setting a good example for their universities by refusing to travel for this completely unnecessary exercise.

Now, given that the last rankings are the only ones that matter for establishing college football’s postseason lineup, an argument can be made that it would be beneficial for committee members to hash out their final Top 25 list in person. But at the very least, the next three in-person weekly meetings should be cancelled and re-scheduled as Zoom meetings.

That’s the type of decision that responsible executives in other industries across the country are making. College athletics administrators should be doing the same.

Really, is it too much to ask that the leaders in college sports act in a responsible, safe manner?

— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans