It makes perfect sense that college football might arrive at the correct decision by accident. In a sport where no one's in charge and everyone looks out for themselves first and the best interest of the game last, dysfunction rules the day.
After months of hiding*, Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti emerged from his cave in suburban Chicago to finally explain his rationale for the 4+4+2+2+1+3 College Football Playoff model for the first time. It was unconvincing.
The main takeaway from Pettiti's pitch was that the B1G remains unmoved off of its perch, despite tremendous public blowback. Essentially, you have everyone in college football the side of 5+11 and the Big Ten (plus Missouri head coach Eliah Drinkwitz) on the other. “We are open to considering any format ideas that come from our colleagues or the CFP staff,” Petitti said. “But to be clear, formats that increase the discretion and role of the CFP selection committee will have a difficult time getting support from the Big Ten.”
Despite the fact that, in the first year of the 12-team CFP, the selection committee elevated 11-1 Indiana with no quality wins over 9-3 Alabama, the Big Ten is against any proposal that would allot more than three at-large bids. It seems the conference remains scarred by past decisions, like when the committee ranked SEC runner-up Georgia fifth and Big Ten champion Ohio State sixth in 2018.
And so it seems, at least at this moment, like the Powers That Be will inadvertently arrive at the correct decision. Were I a betting man, after Pettiti's remarks (and, to be clear, he's not speaking on his own here -- every B1G coach spoke in favor of their proposal), it seems like the most likely outcome is that the Playoff remains at 12 for the time being.
Twelve might prove to be the right number, it might not. But the point is: We don't even really know what it is yet. A 4-man working group spent more than two years devising the 12-team format, and already it's switched from criteria from awarding byes to the four highest-rated conference champions to a straight-seeding format.
“It’s so beautiful what the 12 has done,” former CFP executive director Bill Hancock told Yahoo. “The real beauty is the value it places on conference championships. We’re seeing that. The premium it places on conference championships … it’s magic.”
The BCS lasted from the 1998 season through 2013. The 4-team CFP from 2014 to 2023. The rush to replace the 12-team version is completely manufactured.
The other noteworthy quote from Petitti was, to put it mildly, alarming. When asked the defend the idea that 8-4, sixth-place Iowa would be given a chance to compete for a national championship, the Big Ten commissioner said this:
“If you project that winning (.667) percentage across every other sport, I’m pretty sure you make the postseason."
Key phrase: "across every other sport."
College football has never been every other sport. For more than a century, the regular season was the playoff. One slip up against a 21-point dog in the middle of October could go Freddy Kruger on your national title dreams. That was the entire appeal. We've welded that down now, to the point where 2- and 3-loss champions from the ACC, SEC and Big 12 uncontroversially made the field and a 2-loss, fourth-place finisher won the national title.
But under the Pettiti Plan, the month of September would turn into the NFL preseason, where the main goal is simply to emerge healthy and finishing close enough to the top of the conference standings is all that really matters, because October and November and a mere preamble to the real football in December and January.
It's now where Petitti's credentials to make such a drastic change are called into question. Say what you will about Sankey and ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, at least they've spent their entire professional lives in college athletics. Petitti is a Harvard Law grad who got into the sports industry by becoming the general counsel for ABC Sports. From there, he took on executive roles at a potpourri of networks, but his only experience in college athletics was the three months he spent in charge of CSTV, the network that later became CBS College Sports. Three months. That's all.
Petitti is in college football, but he is not of college football. Much like what's being planned at LSU, Petitti is trying to sell something that does not belong to him.
The counter-argument was that Petitti was placed into his position by the Big Ten universities, and he is fulfilling his duties in representing their interests. And that's fine. I just think it's important to understand Tony Petitti for who he is, who he's not, and to register that, in his own words, he's trying to turn college football into "every other sport."