Bill Hancock on four-team championship playoff: “The BCS did great things for college football. People’s perspectives change. Times change.”
June 29, 2012 – 9:30 am by Steven Cuce
The college football world will finally get to crown a champion the right way. The best way to determine a champion was pretty obvious and that was to have a playoff. For so long college football was deprived of a playoff system and come 2014, the BCS will be no more.
BCS director Bill Hancock always put a happy face on for the way college football handled their playoff format, but now he couldn’t be happier to have that format the way sports fans wanted it all along. 2014 can’t come soon enough for college football fans.
BCS director Bill Hancock joined The Dan Patrick Show to discuss his new job title with college football adopting a four-team championship playoff that will begin in 2014, the name of the four-team championship playoff, being in favor of the four-team championship playoff, the location of the four-team championship playoff and the committee that will be put together to decide the four-team championship playoff.
What is your official title now with the new playoff format coming into college football?
“My title is executive director of the BCS for two more years until the BCS goes away and then I guess it will be executive director of son of the BCS. Whatever it will be called. What happens to me is probably the least important part of this. We are also excited about where this is headed and ready to get working on it.”
What are we going to call this four-team championship playoff that will begin in 2014?
“I think something like college football championship. Something like that. I don’t think you go out and create a cute name. I mean if a cute name gets applied then that’s fine.”
Are you in favor of the four-team championship playoff?
“Yeah I am. [Dan Patrick: What happened? You had to change?] The BCS did great things for college football. It’s undeniable. It made it more of a national game and you’ve heard me say that all those years, but things change. People’s perspectives change. Times change. We’ve had the BCS and the coalition and the alliance, we will have had it for 22 years. Of course people change over 22 years. We’re just ready to get going on the new deal.”
So is the championship game going to the best presenting city?
“It’ll be like the [college basketball] Final Four. It’ll move around every year.”
Who’s deciding the Final Four? That’s my biggest concern with all of this. Agendas? Who’s doing it? What is going to be taken into account here?
“This committee will be I think modeled in the large part after the NCAA sports committees. They do that pretty well. Of course everyone of those committees is subject to contention to controversy every year to soccer to tennis to basketball. They are all the same. I expected this to be made up primarily of current administrators like the NCAA committees. I expect the number to be somewhere between 10 and 20, maybe toward the middle of that number. Every conference to have a representative. Then maybe some at larger representatives to fill in and then how will they or what criteria they use? This is pretty broad, but it makes sense. Win-loss record. Who did you play? Where did you play them? How did you do? What’s your schedule strength? What about head-to-head? What about common opponents? Injuries? Yeah we lost to ‘State University’ but our quarterback was hurt that day. We won the rest of our games and he’s back. All kind of common sense things that folks use to evaluate team is what this committee will use.”
Listen to Bill Hancock on The Dan Patrick Show here [Interview begins at the 17:00 mark of the podcast]
Tags: BCS, Bill Hancock, College Football, College football adopts 4-team playoff format, The Dan Patrick Show
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