CLEMSON, SC – Dan Radakovich calls it “a great honor” to be part of the College Football Playoff selection committee. He also knows it will also be a tough task.
“It’s going to be a lot of work, but anything worthwhile – whether it’s on your campus or in your personal life – tends to be a lot of work,” the Clemson director of athletics said. “I’m really looking forward to the challenge and representing college football in bringing forward those four best teams to be able to challenge and compete for a national championship.”
The four-team College Football Playoff will begin for the 2014-15 season, with the first semifinals set for Jan. 1, 2015 at the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. The national championship game will be Jan. 12, 2015 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Radakovich was announced Wednesday as a member of the selection committee, whose members have roughly 230 combined years of experience in college football.
“As you look at the time that I’ve spent in college athletics, a lot of it centers around football,” Radakovich said. “I was a football student-athlete and student coach, as well, when I was in college. It’s really a great honor to be involved in this committee.”
The group includes 10 people who played college football, two former top-level university administrators, five current athletic directors, three members of the College Football Hall of Fame, three former college head coaches, a former member of Congress, a retired three-star general and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“It’s a very prestigious committee,” Radakovich said. “There are great representatives throughout the country with the singular focus of putting the best four teams out there for a college football playoff. I know that fans around the country will be eagerly awaiting the 2014 season and the selection of those four teams.”
The current BCS formula for deciding the teams that play for the national title relies on a statistical formula that combines computer polls and human rankings.
The new method will allow the committee to use any criteria they see fit to inform their decisions for which teams are selected. Some of those factors would include win-loss record, strength of schedule, head-to-head results and the existing polls.
“All those things I’m sure will be part of the metrics that go into selecting those four teams,” Radakovich said.
The committee will meet informally in early November in Washington, D.C., so the members can begin to get to know each other and discuss how the committee will operate.
Radakovich was nominated to the committee and then selected by the management group, which sought to comprise the committee of people with experience as coaches, student-athletes, administrators, journalists and also sitting athletic directors.
“All the members of the search committee were selected by the management group: the conference commissioners. Those recommendations were forwarded to the group of presidents,” Radakovich said. “So, it is a great honor, and I’m looking forward to serving on it.”
April 12, 2024
