CFP selection panel's chief ready for debate -- and criticism -- with first Top 25 poll
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Bill Hancock has just two words for those who think the weekly College Football Playoff selection committee's Top 25 poll is a ploy to fill TV time:
Dang straight.
"I think the beauty of what we're doing is so many people care about it and because so many people care about it, it generates lots of different opinions," Hancock, executive director of the CFP, tells FOXSportsKansasCity.com. "We're doing the right thing by having a weekly ranking, but there are two reasons for it.
"One, the weekly BCS ratings were very good for the regular season. It just generated so much interest and people tried to jockey for where their team was going to be, and who they were going to cheer for, and who they were going to cheer against. We didn't want to give that up.
"The second reason was we didn't want to drop four teams out of the sky on people (during the final) selection week. We wanted the voters to know what the people on the committee are thinking. And so we're very comfortable that we're doing the right thing."
The CFP's first Top 25 poll will be released at 6:30 p.m. CT tonight in a televised special, a weekly regimen that will run through "Selection Sunday" on Dec. 7. Hancock, who hails from Prairie Village, Kan., has been at CFP headquarters in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas, since midday Sunday. Discussion between the 12 CFP selection committee members -- Ole Miss and NFL icon Archie Manning recently took a leave of absence -- began in earnest Monday.
"The mocks have been really fun and, I think, indicative of what we're going to have with the real committee in terms of the debate," Hancock says. "And there was some heated debate in a couple of the mocks."
The biggest misconception for the general college football fan, Hancock says, is the voting process. Unlike the traditional polls, where teams are ranked 1-25 and given an additive point value for each respective slot, the CFP selectors will undergo steps similar to the men's basketball tournament selection committee, in which groups of teams that are part of a consensus will be compared, and lesser teams thrown out, until 25 spots are filled.
"I think there's a misconception that this is the old football way, which is everybody brings their Top 25 and it'll get tabulated and they'll all go home," Hancock says. "I don't think people have a good conception about the level of details (here), and it's understandable, because it's never been done before in football."
The CollegeFootballPlayoff.com site lays out the specifics:
1. Each committee member will create a list of the 25 teams he or she believes to be the best in the country, in no particular order. Teams listed by three or more members will remain under consideration.
2. Each member will list the best six teams, in no particular order. The six teams receiving the most votes will comprise the pool for the first ranking step.
3. In the first ranking step, each member will rank those six teams, one through six, with one being the best. The three teams receiving the fewest points will become the top three seeds. The three teams that were not seeded will be held over for the next ranking step.
4. Each member will list the six best remaining teams, in no particular order. The three teams receiving the most votes will be added to the three teams held over to comprise the next ranking step.
5. Steps No. 3 and 4 will be repeated until 25 teams have been seeded. There will be seven rounds of voting; each round will consist of a "listing step" and a "ranking step."
Committee members will have access to iPads that can call up coaching tape of any contest, as well as a plethora of statistical information -- comparative strength of schedule and head-to-head performances key among them -- on each of the 128 Football Bowl Subdivision programs. There was a mock selection run back in August for the committee, one of four over the past year or so using teams from previous seasons.
"The committee has been through this with the mocks -- it's not like they're taking their first hit in a game," Hancock says. "They've been playing games, they've been on the field, they know."
But the hits from fans and media have only begun. Locally, Kansas State's 11th-ranked Wildcats are the squad, at the moment, with the most interest in the committee's rankings moving forward. After seven games, the only blight on the 'Cats' slate was a toenail-pulling, 20-14 home defeat to No. 4 Auburn on Sept. 18. The Wildcats have a chance to gain more national traction -- or fall by the wayside -- as three of their final four contests feature daunting road trips to No. 10 TCU (Nov. 8), No. 20 West Virginia (Nov. 20) and No. 12 Baylor (Dec. 6).
If K-State is still humming along with one loss after that gauntlet, it's not just on the early fringes of the conversation; it'll be one of the last teams on the table.
"It doesn't matter where they have you at the beginning of the season or during the season," Wildcats linebacker Jonathan Truman said following K-State's 23-0 rout of Texas. "It's where they have you at the end of the season. It's where they have to put you at the end of the season, based on your performance. So, honestly, wherever we are, that's where we are. It's just a matter of where we are at the end of the season."
Hancock understands Truman's sentiment; he just doesn't happen to share it. He also knows that wherever great interest goes, great scrutiny is sure to follow.
"We've been waiting for this for a long time," Hancock says. "We're ready. We're ready."
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter at @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.
