The new College Football Playoff committee still lacks adequate Group of 5 representation

2018’s six new members of the 13-member College Football Playoff selection committee were announced on Wednesday: Paola Boivin, Joe Castiglione, Ken Hatfield, Ronnie Lott, Todd Stansbury, and Scott Stricklin. They will all serve three-year terms.

Boivin worked as a sports columnist for the Arizona Republic and now works at Arizona State’s journalism school. Castiglione is Oklahoma’s athletic director. Hatfield was a head coach at Air Force, Arkansas, Clemson, and Rice. Lott played at USC and enjoyed a 14-year NFL career. Stricklin is Florida’s AD, previously at Mississippi State. Stansbury is Georgia Tech’s AD, previously at Oregon State and UCF.

They replace six departing members: Kirby Hocutt, Tom Jernstedt, Jeff Long, Dan Radakovich, Steve Wieberg, and Ty Willingham. Oregon AD Rob Mullens replaces Hocutt as the committee’s chair.

One of the biggest things that stands out is that there is still little representation for Group of 5 schools, which have yet to get respect from the committee.

We saw this evidenced by UCF’s 13-0 season last year that was capped off by the Knights defeating Auburn in the Peach Bowl. Before that game, the highest UCF was ranked was 12th in the country, and even that was higher than any non-power had ever been ranked in the Playoff era.

This problem was obvious back in 2014, before the first rankings had even come out:

The recusal list, which declares the teams certain members aren’t allowed to discuss, shows seven have immediate ties to power-conference programs, with at least one each for all five power leagues. Only one has a non-power school listed, and he’s a retired non-AD. That matters for a lot of obvious reasons, as sort of spelled out by Oliver Luck:

”I think it makes a lot of sense to ask Barry Alvarez, ‘Hey, you guys played Michigan last week, tell us what you think. Tell us what your coaches said.’ I think it’s an asset to listen to Pat Haden talk about a Pac-12 team.”

If the fourth Playoff spot were to come down to either a 12-0 Marshall or a two-loss SEC West team, members could ask Jeff Long how that SEC team looked in its win against Arkansas. Whose coaches know much about mid-majors?

While it’s true that Stansbury served as UCF’s AD for a few years and Hatfield coached all over, non-powers are still under-represented.

The new members undoubtedly have the experience to be on the committee, but the Playoff could have done a lot more to try and fix one of its ongoing criticisms.