Transcript from BCS Coordinator
Mike Slive's teleconference
5 days ago
Transcript from BCS Coordinator Mike Slive's teleconference after the BCS Selections were made:
THE MODERATOR: In the Tostito's Fiesta Bowl, No. 1 Oklahoma versus No. 8 Boise State; in the FedEx Orange Bowl, No. 14 Wake Forest versus No. 6 Louisville; in the Nokia Sugar Bowl, LSU versus No. 11 Notre Dame; and the Rose Bowl presented by City, No. 3 Michigan versus No. 5 Southern California; and in the National Championship game, No. 1 Ohio State versus No. 2 Florida. All the games excluding the Rose Bowl will be televised by FOX. The Rose Bowl will be televised by ABC.
MIKE SLIVE: Thank you all for joining the call. I think as we talked about on the call earlier in the week, we've had one of the better football seasons, one of the most exciting football seasons in recent memory and it continued right up through last night's triple overtime game between West Virginia and Rutgers that that settled the automatic selections. We're past the time of speculation and let me open it up to questions.
Q. Do you feel like coming out of, this the controversy over shadows the system? It seems to be all that anybody is talking about and if that's the case, what are your thoughts on that, in terms of whether the system is working or not?
MIKE SLIVE: That's a good question. I think what we've got is, as I say, a really exciting regular season that the BCS actually enhanced by making so many games important, not only in the regions in which they were played, but nationally; so that college football attendance with ratings and with the expanded regional to national games gave us a great season.
And then now the next part is, here we are here, and we have many deserving teams. And so what I have said from last January, and I think there are many people on that this call who have heard me say this over and over again; that we need to continue over the next few years to look at the post season to be sure that it works the way in which we want it to work.
I think the regular season has been enhanced so the where is the magic point where you maintain the quality of the regular season as it currently exists, and yet at the same time maybe provide more opportunity for deserving teams.
Q. How can you justify the Harris Poll as being a proponent of the BCS, given so many of the ballots were inconsistent? In the ballots released just a couple of minutes ago, one pollster had Florida ranked No. 1 and another still had USC in the Top 3 even after they lost to UCLA. Is there any change that could possibly ensure more accurate ratings in the future?
MIKE SLIVE: Thank you for the question. The Harris Poll was put together with 113 or 114 different pollsters put together consistent with acceptable polling principles. I think most of all, it's been interesting over the last two years, the Harris Poll has really tracked the other polls. Obviously each pollster has his or her own view, and in the final analysis, it's the composite of all the pollsters and not necessarily any individual pollster.
So you know, right now, there isn't any plan to make a change in the BCS standings. And now having said that, we will review every component of the BCS each year. We'll sit down in several meetings and look at the standings and we'll look at every aspect of what we do based on the continuing experience that we have.
Q. Another polling question. Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel decided not to vote in the final poll. I guess you can look at that from either side, but any thoughts or concerns for a coach that voted all season long and then the last, probably the most important vote of the season, decided to refuse himself?
MIKE SLIVE: That's a good question. But I do understand, I think he found himself in a very unique situation; that his vote may or may not have had an impact on a team he could play and he decided not to vote. I can respect that view. And we obviously in the BCS take the coach's poll as it comes to us, so there really isn't much more that I can say about it.
Q. You mentioned earlier about definitely wanting to take a review year after year, and you also mentioned specifically that the regular season is made more important by all of this. In that light, I'm curious, will there be a look, is there any sort of movement at, A, making only conference champions eligible for the National Championship; and B, to put in some sort of bylaw that would bar regular season rematches from taking place during the post season?
MIKE SLIVE: Matter of fact we had a long talk about this in the last call. Right with the BCS standings the way they are currently constructed, we have up to this point not put any conditions or caveats on the game, particularly the 1 2 game with the idea that you treat the polls with integrity and not have sort of an asterisk saying, well, if you happen to be No. 2 or No. 1 and you were not the champion, you couldn't play.
The same philosophy applies to the question of a rematch. We have had some rematches in the past. There is a provision in the selection process that provides the commissioners the opportunity at the end of the process to look at the pairings. And one of the areas to look at is if there is a rematch, whether that ought to be changed.
Up to now, the commissioners have to the elected to make changes. There was one I think a couple of years ago with Florida State and Miami. And I didn't anticipate even if there was going to be a rematch, I didn't anticipate that there would be a change. But we will sit down and look at that each year.
One of the things that the commissioners have not wanted to do was try to impact how a conference puts together its season and determines its champion, which raises of course another question of some leagues have championship games and some don't. I think it was the idea to respect the polls and not try to create a way in which it would dictate to leagues how to crown their champion.
Q. Do you have any misgivings at all at the possibility that perhaps some of the voters might have gone with Florida because they didn't want a rematch, or thought America didn't want a rematch, as opposed to simply weighing Michigan on its merits versus Florida?
MIKE SLIVE: One of the things that's hard to do and one of the things I try not to do is to put myself into somebody else's head.
You know, we're talking about a lot of voters here. We're talking something like 200 different voters. I really have no way of knowing what motivates an individual voter how to you know, to cast his or her vote. I've heard a lot of discussion about that. I've heard a lot of speculation about why somebody might vote one way and not another, but I really have no way of knowing.
Q. You said it's important to treat the polls with integrity and seems to me the Coaches Poll is rife with conflicts, a lot of coaches have clauses in their contracts guaranteeing certain money for appearances and where the national champion has to come from, and they don't have to show their votes until the final vote is released; do you have any problem with any of that?
MIKE SLIVE: I don't know how old the Coaches Poll is, but it's been with us for a very, very long time. I think it has public acceptance. You know, I think the AP Poll has been with us a very long time; has public acceptance.
Q. You mean had been with you
MIKE SLIVE: Well, as a member of the public, I'm talking about. Although it's now part of the BCS, it's still a poll that I think has a lot of credibility with the public, is my point. I think it's fair for us to assume the coaches will vote honestly and forthrightly. That's all we can assume. The option is to
Q. Well, they are also, obligated, aren't they, to vote in the final poll for whoever wins the BCS Championship Game?
MIKE SLIVE: That's a decision made by the American Football Coaches Association. I think that we will know how the coaches vote the votes of the coaches in the final poll will be made public. And it's the final poll, really, when you think about it, it's the final poll that counts. There are a lot of other polls that keep us all interested, but it's the poll that determines what we're talking about here today and we will be able to, see all of us, how each coach voted, and then you can draw your own conclusions as to whether or not you thought that coach voted appropriately.
Q. I understand that Coach Tressel was in a unique situation, but you have no trouble with him abstaining in his vote then?
MIKE SLIVE: I said I understood it. I respect him and I understood it; that's what I said.
Q. Will that be a continued part of the poll? Will coaches have the opportunity to opt out as
MIKE SLIVE: I think that's something that we'll sit down and talk with Grant Teaff, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, as we move forward.
Q. I wanted to go back to a question, in general what people are trying to figure out is with people if what does motivate a voter; do you think it's okay to be thinking of the rematch or not the rematch in terms of how they do the vote? Would it trouble you to say, I don't want to see the rematch as opposed to if they were No. 2?
MIKE SLIVE: I don't want to try to put myself in somebody else's place. I mean, there can be a whole lot of reasons why people vote, and to pick one out it and try to focus in on one particular principle is something that it's just difficult to do.
The point is that the voters had the freedom to vote for any reason that they deem appropriate. You know, some of them we may like and some of them we may not like. But some of them we may agree with and some we may not but that's the system that's in place.
Q. It's a little bit of a softball question, but considering last year's Rose Bowl and what generally happens year in and year out, do you feel like you want to say to people who have problems with this system: What more do you want? I mean, you have two great teams every year. There's never a Cinderella team that gets to the game; these teams are all worthy teams.
MIKE SLIVE: You know, I've thought about that a lot because there are moments like last year where there just is no issue and everybody's on board.
But notwithstanding that, even when I spoke to the football writers way back in Pasadena before the game last year, I felt that it was it was still an appropriate time to continue to look at the BCS system, to look at whether or not that we could maintain all that we have and still determine there's so many good teams and like this year with Michigan and Florida, that maybe we ought to take a look at opening it up some.
Now, that doesn't mean that controversy will not follow. There is in any system that we've looked at or that we're beginning to look at or think about, really will have advantages and disadvantages, and it all depends on how it plays out in any given year.
I for one would like us to continue to look critically at what we have now and think about whether or not this might be a way to open it up some without going to what everybody calls I talked about the dreaded word, playoff, in the last call; but something in a plus one for example, is one such model, although it, too, is fraught with difficulty.
Q. What do you think of having a team like Boise State in the first year you open it up?
MIKE SLIVE: I think it's great. I think that we've got a great team. It's a Cinderella team and they have earned it; they have made the criteria that we set forth and it's exciting. You know, they have played on the field and earned the slot and we're looking forward to watching them play.
Q. You made some comments during halftime in the game last night in the about the SEC playing for the national title, how do you feel about balancing the two hats, as you call them, and will you change anything with respect to next year?
MIKE SLIVE: I've talked a lot about this, and the reason that I think it's possible to wear two hats is the coordinator and as I said, the coordinator is aptly named; the coordinator is not the czar, not the commissioner, not the executive director and not the decision maker.
I sat in my office today waiting to see like other people decided about who is going to be in the games. I see at this point in time it is possible to do both, but I also think that it's something that we can continue to talk about. I think it's different than basketball where the folks on the basketball committee are, in fact, decision makers. You know, I don't talk to pollsters, I've never talked to the computer guy. So the role here is to coordinate and make sure that this system can run. Is.
Q. If you were given a mandate to make that one plus game happen, how soon do you think something like that could be put together? Is that a season two, seasons away?
MIKE SLIVE: Yeah, good question, my sense is and I know that my sense is, and I think in our league that the dialogue will begin sometime this spring.
You know, when you think about it, we have a four year agreement and this is the first of four years and these games are about on us. And normally, you start talking about the future before the end of the agreement, so we're probably talking about some dialogue and some consequence over the next two years.
Q. I was just wondering if you ever thought that maybe the Big 10, because of what's happened to Michigan, maybe should move their schedule back to where their season ends; with a conference championship game or not, whether their season ends like the Pac 10 does, in the hopes that maybe if their season ended right here on December 2 with an Ohio State and Michigan game, that even with a loss, they would still be No. 2.
MIKE SLIVE: Well, let me go back to what I said a little bit earlier because it's really important and your question does highlight an important part of our process and that is each conference, you know, has the right to determine how it wants to run its regular season and how it wants to determine its champion.
And so it really is not something that I would be involved in or really want to have an opinion about as a BCS coordinator. I usually get the question a little bit differently. I usually get the question about the championship games, and if everybody doesn't have the Championship Game, should everybody have the Championship Game; wouldn't that be fair. And then the answer to that question really is the same answer to the question that you asked.
THE MODERATOR: That will do it for tonight's teleconference.