Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti was singing all the right words in his address at Big Ten Media Days in Las Vegas.
I’m not sure anyone could see the disappointing turn coming.
It started off so well when he talking about the College Football Playoff, too.
“There are plenty of teams in professional sports who qualify for the playoffs who can’t get past the first-round game,” Pettiti said. “That’s OK, they still get to play.”
Sure. I agree. I see where you’re going with this.
“We’ll figure it out on the field, rather than sitting in a room,” Petitti said.
Oh yeah. Wholeheartedly agree there, boss. Keep going.
“If you’re 6-3 in the Big Ten, I would argue that’s a great record, and if you stumbled in a non-conference game, I don’t know why that disqualifies you,” Petitti said. “8-4 as a winning percentage, if you project that winning percentage in every other sport, I’m pretty sure you make the postseason.”
… What?
Now you’ve lost me.
Getting a Big Ten that finishes 6-3 in conference play into the Playoff is not pitting the 16th-best team against each other for a shot at a national title. Pettiti’s “4-4-2-2-1” concept is a greedy one, at best, for a conference that does not need to be greedy.
The ideas for expansion have flown the coop, jumped the tracks and completely lost the plot of why the College Football Playoff usurped the BCS system to begin with.
Remember the 2007 Fiesta Bowl Champion Boise State Broncos? The guys that finished 13-0, beat Oklahoma on the Statue of Liberty play and supercharged the argument for some form of playoff in college football? This slaps them in the face.
College football does not look like the way it did in 2007, but why should anyone in the Big Ten be advocating for a team with a 6-3 conference record – which can be a 9-3 record at its best or a 6-6…
Source link : https://www.fox32chicago.com/sports/column-big-ten-tony-petitti-lost-college-football-playoff-model
Author :
Publish date : 2025-07-23 02:00:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
