Sports

The Big Ten Missed the Playoff Twice. Is Winning the Conference Enough to Contend?


In interviews and news conferences during Big Ten media days in Chicago, coaches repeatedly cited their conference’s approach to scheduling — nine league games, unlike the eight played by teams in the Atlantic Coast and Southeastern Conferences — as a potential strength that simultaneously imperiled their playoff prospects. Ohio State’s only loss last season was at Purdue.

“You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that if you play nine conference games and you’re beating each other up, teams with eight conference games are going to be in a better situation,” said Scott Frost, Nebraska’s coach.

Some coaches suggested that uniform scheduling across the sport was more important than expanding the playoff.

“If you’re going to ask a group of men and women to go into a room and make a decision on who belongs in the playoffs, then everybody should be playing under the same criteria, so everybody should be seven conference games or eight conference games or 10 conference games,” said James Franklin, the coach at Penn State. “I don’t care, but it should be standardized.”

Still, many officials, especially administrators and conference executives, hope for expansion.

The playoff’s executive director, Bill Hancock, said that no significant changes were imminent for a system that the A.C.C. and S.E.C. have certainly enjoyed, even as Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 fans so often seethed. (And do not forget Central Florida, the American Athletic Conference team that declared itself a champion after an undefeated 2017 season, including a Peach Bowl victory over Auburn. Frost led Central Florida’s program then.)

“People almost never question the committee’s integrity, and when they do, they’re off base,” Hancock said recently over a lunch of fried catfish and banana pudding in Hoover, Ala., where he spoke at S.E.C. media days. “People know it works. There will always be a Team 5.”



READ NEWS SOURCE

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.