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The 2018 College Football “Playoff” Committee

The picks are set!  The bowls have started!  In just a few hours Alabama faces Oklahoma and Clemson takes on Notre Dame.  These tepid pairings surely allow YET ANOTHER game between Alabama and Clemson that no one outside of those two fan bases cares about…at all.  Let’s meet the morons respected committee members who picked the participants in this year’s “playoffs”…

Rob Mullens, Chairman

Current gig: Oregon AD
Conference affiliation: Pac 12
Recusal: Oregon
Age and Alma mater: 49, West Virginia

From last year I wrote about Mullens being little more than a figurehead for Phil Knight and joked that Mullens would have Willie Taggert dig up Knut Rockne and clone him.  Well then Taggert left so it opened up the opportunity to make the exact same joke with Mario Cristobol but something much funnier happened, the Oregon athletic department has been put on probation!  The chair of the “playoff” committee runs his own athletic department so poorly that football, track and field, and both basketball teams have rules violations. Brilliant stuff.

Grade: F

Frank Beamer

Former gig: Virginia Tech head coach
Conference affiliation: None (other than coaching in the ACC for a zillion years)
Recusal: Virginia Tech, Georgia
Age and Alma mater: 72, Virginia Tech

You know last year I was pretty hard on coach Beamer.  But then I found this quote:
“I’ve always said if we had eight teams, I think we’d for sure get anyone who has the chance to be the best team in the country in there. Sometimes four gets a little shaky … but if you’ve got eight, I think you’ve got a pretty good shot of getting them all.”  Even his defense of the current format is pretty tepid saying, “But if you had eight, there would conversation about the ninth team, the 10th team. I think eight would work very well, but it’s not going to change soon because of the contract we’ve got. I don’t know if it’s ever going to change.”  Hot damn, Coach wants eight teams!

Grade: A+

Paola Boivin

Former/current gig: journalist/journalism professor
Conference affiliation: None
Recusal: None
Age and Alma mater: never ask, Illinois

Boivin is a highly regarded journalist but she is a professor at Arizona State and went to Illinois as an undergrad meaning she has had to sit through both Arizona State and Illinois football games.  That makes her a patron saint of crappy football and means she has a brilliant eye for who not to put in the “playoffs.”  That’s a start at least.

As for her journalism career, among other well-written I noticed she had a series in the Arizona Republic called “On the Fringe With…” and then interviewed a golfer.  Just put that nugget in your back pocket.

Grade: A (point off for being an AP voter.  Do they ever get anything right?)

Jeff Bower

Former gig: Southern Miss head coach
Conference affiliations: None
Recusal: Southern Miss
Age and Alma mater: 65, Southern Miss

Oh crap, Paola Boivin’s “On the Fringe With…” comes back to bite us as this dope is going to want to be interviewed.  After all, he used to be a scratch golfer.  I’m worried that instead of evaluating the actual football teams Bower and Boivin spent all their time discussing Davis Love the III’s chipping game in the late 90s.  It certainly explains why UCF is routinely rated so low.

Grade: D

Joe Castiglione

Current gig: Oklahoma AD
Conference affiliation: Big 12
Recusal: Oklahoma, Missouri
Age and Alma mater: 61, Maryland and Oklahoma

Hard to find fault with this guy.  His football sense speaks for itself with the hiring of Stoops and now Riley but the OU athletic department is extremely well run.  They even win national titles in non revenue sports like gymnastics.  He is a rare commodity: an athletic director fans don’t want to run out of town.

Grade: A+

Herb Deromedi

Former gig: Central Michigan head coach
Conference affiliation: None
Recusal: Central Michigan
Age and Alma mater: 79, Michigan

The last time this guy coached a game was 1993.  Literally no one playing in the “playoffs” was alive the last time he called a game.  But yeah, I’m sure football is similar enough 25 years after the last time you coached to evaluate things.  The other thing I love about Herb is his age.  I’m sure a near octogenarian who is happily retired is spending his Saturdays watching every game then pouring over data and analysis to pick the best teams.

Here is some solid anecdotal evidence.  My dad loves football and is nearly 15 years younger than this guy yet he falls asleep shortly after Brian Ferentz’s offense has put him in what we like to call an “Iowa Coma.”  I bet if I told my pops that San Jose State won the Pac 12 south he’d nod and say, “Their games are on too late for me to care.”  Do you want that level of analysis on the “playoff” committee?!?

Grade: C

Ken Hatfield

Former gig: Pissing off Clemson fans
Conference affiliations: N/A
Recusal: Air Force, Arkansas, Clemson, Rice
Age and Alma mater: 75, Arkansas

Hatfield is a new member this year that is getting ready to become the new Deromedi-ish member of the committee.  You know, the random old guy who hasn’t coached in a decade and is hardly remembered outside of the campuses he walked.  Here’s a recap.  After a five year run at Air Force, Hatfield used his very nice 18-7 record over his final two season with the Falcons to head to where he played, Arkansas.  He killed it with the Pigs going 55-17-1 but when a new AD came who Hatfield hated, he left for Clemson.  Once with the Tigers he kept winning going 32-13-1 but was the butt of jokes like, “Howard built it. Ford filled it. Hatfield killed it.”   Despite winning a league title his contract was not extended.  Hatfield headed to Rice where he would stay for over a decade and bring a level of respect to the program rarely felt with three winning seasons in 12 years.

Oh, he also ran the triple option.  So if you want an older, less successful Paul Johnson, Hatfield is your committee member.

Guy is also homophobic.  In 2002 he said he “would not necessarily kick a player off the team for being gay, he probably would think hard about it.”  While he gave a weak ass apology/explanation the same interview has him talk about faith and Jesus and all that junk.

Grade: F

Christopher B. Howard

Current gig: Robert Morris president
Conference affiliation: None
Recusal: None
Age and Alma mater: 49, Air Force

Nope, not a new guy, still the same idiot who named his dog after Sam Bradford.  He just classes it up by going with the full name now.  Nothing new to report on this moron but his football team continues to do well.  In Bernard Clark Jr’s first season Robert Morris went 2-9 with wins coming against Virginia State and Central State.  Haven’t heard of them?  Well they are D-2, so that might have something to do with that.

I realize the president of the university has more irons in the fire than worrying about sports but have you never noticed the worse a president is at their job, the worse the athletics are?  Take Maryland’s Wallace Loh.  Terrible president, terrible bow tie, terrible football program, and a player died on this terrible programs lack of watch.

This is obviously the extreme but I feel like I am allowed to do it because Howard likes to compare everyday things to his military experience.  Like this: “Even though the military is involved with everything from nation-building to kinetic strikes on enemy forces, it really is, ironically, a people business, a people-driven organization.”  Or this: “You want your airmen to become senior airmen, your lieutenants to become captains…The corollary in the academic world is that you want your freshman to become sophomores, sophomores [to] become juniors, assistant professors to become associate professors, directors to become VPs, on down the line.”

Yup, still an idiot.

Grade: F

Bobby Johnson

Former gig: Vanderbilt head coach
Conference affiliation: None
Recusal: None
Age and Alma mater: 67, Clemson

This dude is a joke.  His primary qualification is getting his ass handed too him every week for eight seasons at Vanderbilt.  Think I’m using hyperbole?  Nope.  Eight seasons, one winning record, never better than .500 in the SEC, and a whopping 29-66 (12-52) overall record.  I hammered this guy a season ago and literally nothing has changed about this dope being on the committee.  At least this is his last season helping shape these “playoffs.”  I can’t wait to see who the CF”P” adds next.  Maybe John L. Smith will get a crack.

Grade: F – – – – –

Ronnie Lott

Current gig: Running one of the most meaningless awards (Lott IMPACT Trophy)
Conference affiliations: None
Recusal: USC
Age and Alma mater: 59, USC

His bio says he is a businessman and a broadcaster but I’ll let you judge his broadcasting career:

Grade: F

Gene Smith

Current gig: Ohio State AD
Conference affiliation: Big Ten
Recusal: Ohio State
Age and Alma mater: 62, Notre Dame

I gave this guy an A+ last year and then this off season he kept Urban Meyer despite coach Meyer protecting an abusive position coach and lying to the media about said protection.  If that is how you run your program, you are part of the PROBLEM in today’s misogynistic culture and not a SOLUTION.

Grade: F

Todd Stansbury

Current gig: Georgia Tech AD
Conference affiliations: ACC
Recusal: Georgia Tech
Age and Alma mater: 57, Georgia Tech

On one hand he used to be the UCF athletic director so maybe he put up the good fight behind closed doors but on the other hand he is Canadian.  Do we really want our friendly northern neighbors butting into ‘MURICA’S GAME?!?!  Also, he tends to love the corporate double speak.  From his bio:

Stansbury has identified four strategic priorities for Georgia Tech athletics:

  • Define the GT athletics brand
  • Establish internal culture
  • Align the internal structure
  • Generate new revenue

I think they translate like this:

  • Define the GT athletics brand = New uniform contract for $$$ and sell the merch to fans for $$$
  • Establish internal culture = Team building (yuck, trust falls)
  • Align the internal structure = What work flows maximize revenue and minimizes costs, aka, what jobs can be filled by undergrad interns?
  • Generate new revenue = MILK THE BOOSTERS!!!

Grade: D

Scott Stricklin

Current gig: Florida AD
Conference affiliation: SEC
Recusal: Florida
Age and Alma mater: 48, Mississippi State

This dude knows one thing about football…he likes how Dan Mullen coaches football.  He was the senior associate AD at Mississippi State when Mullen was hired.  Now at Florida, Stricklin hired Mullen.  At least he was smart enough to drop potential shark seducer Jim McElwain while on duty at Florida.

Honestly, the thing that I love most about Stricklin and would talk his ear off about is Tulane.  Among his stops to the top of a major program was being in Tulane’s athletic department in 1998 when the Green Wave went 12-0 in football.  If someone is even tangentially connected to all time college football great Shaun King, well sir, that is good enough for me.

Grade: A+

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