New York Post, Tuesday, August 27, 2019
nypost.com
45
I
T HAS been 150 years since college foot-
ball was born at Rutgers. And, still,
somehow — 116 years after the first
World Series, 90 years since the first
NCAA Tournament, 41 years since college
football’s first Division I-AA playoff — the
FBS remains embarrassingly incapable of
crowning a champion in a just and appro-
priate manner.
Significant strides have been made.
The much-bemoaned BCS killed decades
of illogical endings — championships be-
ing split and/or being decided by writers
and/or coaches — with the important first
step of ensuring the top two teams would
play for the na-
tional title,
however con-
troversial the
selection of the
pair would be.
The introduc-
tion of the
four-team play-
off was prog-
ress many
never believed
they’d live to
see, but it remains plagued with problems.
In five seasons, only 10 different teams
have reached the playoff. The Big Ten and
Pac-12 champions were left out each of the
last two years. Central Florida, which had
consecutive undefeated regular seasons,
hasn’t come close to sniffing a bid.
The fix is easy: Add four more teams.
Too many? An eight-team playoff would
comprise just more than 6 percent of FBS
teams. The men’s basketball tournament
invites over 20 percent. The NFL has 37.5
percent. MLB has 40 percent. The NBA
and NHL let more than 50 percent in.
How can it be too many when the system
has less playoff participants than power
conferences? How can you justify 60-
something teams being told a national
championship isn’t an option before the
season begins, a dream afforded to every
16-seed every March? In the college foot-
ball playoff era, a 1-seed has yet to win the
national title.
The biggest factors the 13-member com-
mittee considers when selecting the field
are strength of schedule — a factor outside
of many teams’ control — and the most in-
exact metric known as the eye-test.
The ideal eight-team field would include
all five power-conference winners — the
SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Pac-12 and Big 12 — a
Group of Five representative and two at-
large teams. Instantly, conference champi-
onship games would regain meaning, while
deserving teams who fall short — a la ’16
Ohio State, ’17 Alabama — could still ad-
vance without coming at the expense of a
conference champion. There was a time
when college basketball believed only con-
ference champions deserved an NCAA
Tournament berth. Then the calendar hit
1975.
Most importantly, the playoff would al-
ways provide an opportunity for Cinder-
ella, the foundation of March Madness —
the most beloved postseason of all — a
long missing ingredient from college foot-
ball. Let’s stop assuming we know what
would happen if UCF played Clemson, any
more than we knew Vince Young couldn’t
topple USC, and the Colts would put Joe
Namath in his place and Phi Slamma
Jamma would wipe the smile from Jim Val-
vano’s face.
To compensate for the additional playoff
round, merely shorten the regular season
by a week. Is anyone going to miss Clem-
son against Wofford? Or Alabama against
Mercer? Or Georgia against Austin Peay?
Then, move up the conference champi-
onship games by one week, and put the
quarterfinal playoff round in its place,
which should be played on campuses —
adding unrivaled atmosphere to games
previously reserved for hit-and-miss neu-
tral-site locations — while not drastically
altering the current bowl format, and al-
lowing the student-athletes to take their fi-
nal exams in the first few weeks of Decem-
ber.
The backlash against expansion is tired:
Adding games isn’t feasible, the bowl sys-
tem would be weakened, the regular sea-
son would be devalued.
In reality, a larger playoff field would cre-
ate more contenders, ushering in week af-
ter week of de facto playoff games. Similar
arguments were made before the BCS was
blown up, but billions and billions of dol-
lars changed hands, and suddenly the Her-
culean feat was no longer impossible.
College Football Playoff executive direc-
tor Bill Hancock told The Post the Board of
Managers — comprised of university pres-
idents and chancellors representing the 10
FBS conferences and Notre Dame — have
discussed different formats and will con-
tinue to do so, but nothing is imminent.
Hancock said they are preparing for possi-
ble changes in the future. But one hurdle to
immediate implementation is the $7.2 bil-
lion deal ESPN signed for the rights to the
four-team playoff, entering the sixth year
of the 12-year contract. The deal could be
renegotiated, but the all-time greatest
roadblock to progress in college football
somehow still stands in the way — the
bowls.
Almost all lost their luster before the
playoff was born. There are dozens you
don’t even know exist. But the old network
of bowl commissioners remains in place,
each protecting payouts threatened to
shrink from another round of the playoff.
To put an eight-team playoff in place prior
to 2025 would require voiding every bowl
contract and the guarantees afforded to the
Orange, Rose and Sugar Bowls of featuring
non-playoff, power conference champions.
Unfortunately, most motivation for
change comes from those without the
power to put it in place, exactly as it had
been for so many years. An expanded play-
off will eventually come, but the seemingly
never-ending question in college football
remains — when?
DAY3OF 6
Witha spotfor eachPower Fiveconference winner, aGroup
ofFiveteam andtwo at-large bids,The Post thinksa playoff
fix is an easy tweakaway.
How The Post would
fix the CFB Playoff
?
By BRIAN LEWIS
Last year, Nets GM Sean Marks
vowed that ownership — then split
between Mikhail Prokhorov and Joe
Tsai — would be willing to spend
when the moment called for it.
Apparently the moment called.
And Tsai answered by opening his
wallet and spending big.
After landing Kevin Durant, Kyrie
Irving and DeAndre Jordan during
the opening hours of free agency on
June 30, the Nets gave Caris LeVert
a three-year, $52.5 million rookie ex-
tension Sunday. It pushed their
summer spree past $400 million.
“We already know we have an
ownership group that’s ready to fork
out the big money when that timing
is right,” Marks said last year, when
Prokhorov and Tsai were essentially
co-owners.
“We know with our ownership group
... you’ve got owners that are commit-
ted to building this with a foundation
that has some longevity and they’re
committed to this, which is great.”
On Aug. 20, The Post broke the
news Tsai — who already owned 49
percent of the Nets — had bought
the rest of the team, as well as con-
trol of Barclays Center. That also
put the Alibaba co-founder entirely
on the hook for a hefty payroll that
looks likely to rise.
LeVert’s extension kicks in for the
2020-21 season, when the Nets will
be committed to $121 million in sal-
ary. And with Joe Harris an unre-
stricted free agent next summer and
Taurean Prince a restricted one,
Tsai will likely have to pay the lux-
ury tax to keep them.
Going into this summer, the big-
gest free-agent deal the Nets had
ever handed out was Jeremy Lin’s
three-year, $36 million contract. But
they’re playing in a whole different
neighborhood after their recent
spree, all with Tsai’s blessing.
“We want to win,” Tsai said in
May. “We want to put a team on the
floor that’s a winning team.”
The contracts handed out to Du-
rant, Irving, Jordan and now LeVert
all line up to end in 2022-23. Durant
and Irving will both have player op-
tions that year, giving the Nets at
worst a two-year window to con-
tend. It could reach three if Durant
returns this season, and four if both
he and Irving opt-in for 2022-23.
Granted, there’s risk with all of
them, from Durant’s Achilles ten-
don to Jordan’s decline to Irving’s
knee and attitude. And LeVert’s in-
jury history is daunting.
LeVert missed essentially half of
his final two collegiate campaigns
(35 games), mostly due to his left
foot. He’s sat about a third of his first
three years in the NBA (78 games),
including three months last season
due to his dislocated right foot.
But LeVert was the Nets’ best
player at both the beginning and
end of the season, averaging a team-
high 21 points in the playoffs. A
healthy 2019-20 campaign would’ve
put him in line for a far bigger con-
tract, hitting the market at 25.
“Caris personifies what it means
to be a Brooklyn Net,” Marks said,
“and we firmly believe his best bas-
ketball is in front of him.”
They not only believe it, they’re
banking on it.
A healthy LeVert makes his con-
tract a bargain. LeVert with a better
jumper makes the deal a steal.
It’s the first deal Tsai has signed
off on as principal owner, and for
the e-commerce billionaire, it’s just
the cost of contention.
[email protected]
Tsai putting money where his mouth is
BY HOWIE KUSSOY and ZACH BRAZILLER