CFP Executive Director Rich Clark Discusses College Football Playoff Changes, Seeding Protocol, More

College Football Playoff Executive Director Rich Clark took part in a teleconference on Wednesday to discuss the seeding and ranking process for the CFP Committee this year. The first rankings come out next Tuesday evening. Clark followed up his presentation with a Q&A with various media members as everybody tried to gain a better understanding of what the new 12-team playoffs will look like this year. The highlights of everything that was said can be found below.

The selection committee will have its first full meeting this weekend. “We have a great committee and I know they are up to the task.” There are 13 total members, six of which are new. There are six ADs and seven at-large members. The at-large members are journalists, former coaches, former players, and people who are knowledgeable in the game and athletics.
All members are given iPads that have all necessary games uploaded in a truncated 45-min file.
Each week the goal is to rank the 25 best teams. The final week they will seed those teams.
On teams ranked inside the top 12 and not making the playoffs: “They weren’t bumped out, they just weren’t in it.”
For the next two years, the quarterfinals will honor the bowl tie-ins of the top four seeds. Once those tie-ins are complete in the slotting, then they go to proximity. Then in the semifinals, the top seed gets consideration. For instance using last year’s rankings/seedings, No. 1 Michigan’s closest bowl would be the Cotton Bowl.
On a team like Indiana not getting fair treatment: “We’re not trying to pick the most-deserving teams. We’re trying to pick the best teams.” “I think fans need to know that our committee is sophisticated. They are an unbiased group that’s just trying to pick the best teams.”
If there are no Group of 5 Champions in the Top 25, they will then rank all of the conference champions overall and pick the fifth-best conference champ to be that Group of 5 invitee.
On the importance of strength of schedule: “That is a very important metric. It’s not the only metric, but it’s an important one.”
What could a potential SEC/Big Ten partnership do to the strength of schedule metric? Clark: Not privy to those conversations so not sure where that’s going to go, but if you are playing teams from these two conferences exclusively, that would have an impact on their strength of schedule.
The Peach, Fiesta, and Cotton Bowls don’t have conference tie-ins.
How does the committee weigh conference runners-up vs other teams in that conference that didn’t make a championship game? They have talked about that. The committee members are sophisticated enough to know that the top two teams are playing and take that into account. It would still depend on what the loss looks like and who the No. 3 team is. They will not be penalized “unduly.”
Have any schools indicated they would like to host a first-round game off site? “Not yet. It could happen but as of now, at least the teams as we’ve come through the season…the teams that still are [alive], they have all indicated that they will play their game where they normally play their home games.” If something did happen where a team couldn’t play in their home stadium, they could discuss another venue. Sometimes it’s not just about stadium use but it could be about hotels or something else “that we don’t know about.”
Could the No. 1 team in the semifinal make a request for a different location than just proximity? No. “We do not look for feedback from the schools on their preferred locations.” This means the No. 1 seed could play at a venue that is a relatively local stadium for their prospective opponent. They don’t want to make these layouts too complicated and challenging. There is a possibility the committee could step in if it’s overly egregious but unlikely.
Making a conference championship game does not earn a team “bonus points.” How they perform in that game will matter. Also, the fact that they had the kind of season that earned a bid in the conference championship game is still a positive.
They will not change seedings to avoid rematches.