Arkansas athletic director and chairman of the College Football Playoff Committee Jeff Long called into an Arkansas talk radio show and responded to Nick Saban’s comments on bowl games and the playoff.
Jeff Long doesn’t seem to be thrilled with Nick Saban saying last week that the college football playoff would hurt the bowls.
Last week Nick Saban gave us his take on the college football playoff and the bowl system:
"“But what I was most fearful of is college football is unique. A lot of young men get a lot of positive self gratification from being able to go to a bowl game and that’s always been a special thing. That by having a playoff we would minimize the interest in other bowl games, which I think is sort of what happened and I hate to see that for college football.”"
OK, so Nick Saban isn’t a fan of the playoff, the icing on the cake quote from AL.com was this though:
"“Maybe we need to go one way or the other, either have bowl games or have playoffs but not try to have both.”"
That’s a pretty great soundbite from Saban and Jeff Long didn’t like it one bit. So Long called into Sports Talk With Bo Mattingly on Friday as an unscheduled guest. The whole show felt a little weird as Mattingly wasn’t expecting a call from Long and Long was obviously there to respond to the Saban comments.
When asked about the Nick Saban comments Long said:
"“Well, I think sometimes coaches, particularly those at the highest level, I’m not sure how aware they are of what’s really going on out in the real world. They keep adding bowl games. I think the television interest for the games is higher than ever before, and I think that is not only the College Football Playoff, but as we’ve gone down through some of those bowl games.”"
So Jeff Long things that Saban’s comment shows that he is out of touch with the real world? The athletic director who hired John L. Smith at Arkansas thinks Nick Saban is out of touch? Sure.
I don’t think Long really understood what Nick Saban was saying. The TV audience for bowl games was up this year, and they are adding more bowl games next year, but that doesn’t mean more people are interested in bowl games. The actual attendance for bowl games was down 4% this year; a 4% drop the very first year of the College Football Playoff.
Right now everyone is running around set on making sure the “bowl legacy” gets protected, but that won’t last. If you are really “aware of what’s really going on out in the real world” you’d realize that this is just lip service for the bowl purist and the folks hung up on the tradition. Give the College Football Playoff a few years to get truly established and then let’s see if everyone is still so concerned with protecting the bowls.
Beyond all this if you think the College Football Playoff really is going to stay put at four teams you’re dreaming. All that money, all that attention, all those ratings. It’s only a matter of time before we end up with eight teams and if you are denying that then you’re living in a fantasy.
“But an eight team playoff will be so hard for the kids” you say? This is college football, when have the students ever stood in the way of making money?
I don’t agree with Nick Saban that we should go back to the bowl system, but I think Jeff Long might be the one who’s out of touch.