Slive: I Like Play-Offs

When the most powerful commissioner in college football is saying: “I like play-offs”, it’s not going to be a matter whether college football goes to a play-off, it’s a matter when it does, and how many teams are involved.

Speaking at the SEC Baseball tournament in Hoover (won by the Mississippi State Bulldogs, if you’re counting), Mike Slive said that he favours a four-team play-off.

“I think what’s in the best interest of college football is a four-team playoff,” he told ESPN. “I think it’s better for everyone involved in the game. The plus-one narrows the postseason in a way that’s not necessarily in the best interest of all the conferences.”

Of course, now comes the madness and questions:

1) Does the new SEC-Big XII game have to be a de facto semi-final or final?

2) Would Slive be against this if the SEC Champion was the fifth-ranked team in the nation (it’s gotta happen sometime!), and therefore unable to qualify under the new rules?

3) What would be they prefer, play-off games at away games or neutral venues (this blog, btw, likes the nature of ‘away games’, simply because anyone going into the likes of Eugene, Tuscaloosa, Death Valley or Camp Randall (as would have been the case this year) would have seen some great college football atmospheres?)

And last but not least?

Does this mean that we’re automatically going to go for four superconferences, built up of the SEC, Pac-12, Big Ten and Big XII, and that Notre Dame’s automatically going to have to join a conference?

The answer? No. But if it is decided that four-team play-offs are the way to go, then it would be a lot more simple if this was the case. This will mean an almighty tear-up of the Big East and ACC – although this would only be for football (basketball, we’d argue, will say the same). Not that it would be any good for the game, mind.