Iowa Officials Split on Football Selection Committee Service
By Scott Dochterman, Reporter
Iowa Head Coach Kirk Ferentz talks with UI Athletics Director Gary Barta before their Orange Bowl victory over Georgia Tech Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010 at Land Shark Stadium in Miami, FL. (Brian Ray/KCRG)
By
Grant Burkhardt
Story Created:
Jun 28, 2012 at 4:18 PM CDT
Story Updated:
Jun 28, 2012 at 4:31 PM CDT
IOWA CITY — Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz wants no part in selecting the four best teams when the new playoff system begins in 2014. His boss, Iowa Athletics Director Gary Barta, would consider serving on the newly created selection committee.
Barta hardly is advocating for a role, but said, “if I were invited, I’m sure I’d accept.”
“I’m most interested in making sure whoever is on the committee has great direction going into a process in terms of what we as a country want in terms of criteria,” Barta told The Gazette on Wednesday. “That’s my No. 1 priority. I’m confident whoever you put in there has a passion and a strong knowledge base for college football. That’s a given. So let’s make sure we send the group into those kinds of discussions with a strong understanding of the criteria we want used. After that, it’s too early to say who’s going to be on the committee.”
Unlike the Bowl Championship Series, which uses a combination of polls and computer rankings to determine the top two teams for a single championship game, a committee will select the four schools in a seeded, four-team tournament. Among the valued criteria includes win-loss record, strength of schedule, head-to-head results and conference championship status. Nothing about the selection committee, from its membership and composition to its procedures and criteria, has been determined.
The USA Today/Coaches Poll comprises one-third of the current BCS standings. Ferentz never has voted in the poll and joking said, “no, no, no” when asked if he’d serve on a selection committee.
“In November all we really know, at least all that I know, is the Big Ten,” Ferentz said. “I’ve seen those teams on film. For me to comment on how Boise is or how TCU is or anybody in the Pac-12, you can’t do it because you can’t see those teams and I don’t watch a lot of TV.
“To me we might be the worst group to rely on in November and December because what we just count on what we see in the papers and in passing. Usually I read the papers at the end of the week. So I don’t know what the right group is, but certainly the commissioners would be a good starting point and then whoever they want to add on.”
The new format is slated to last through the 2025 season and will place the top four teams in a seeded, four-team tournament within two bowls. The winners will then meet in a title game located outside of the bowl structure and ran by the conferences.
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