If there is any consensus about the new 12-team College Football Playoff, it is that the committee should rethink the rule giving automatic byes to the top four conference champions in the bracket. Leading that charge has been College GameDay anchor Rece Davis, who said this week that he is lobbying the committee hard to change the rule.
The host of ESPN’s biggest college football show wants the seeding “to be fixed immediately” and admitted that his comments on the CFP selection show and elsewhere were aimed squarely at the committee.
In a recent interview on The Press Box podcast, Davis even revealed he has spoken with committee members directly in an effort to change the format.
“The thing that in my judgment didn’t work and needs to be fixed immediately is, just seed the bracket,” Davis said. “I mean, your reward for winning your conference is getting in the field. And I thought it didn’t work having Arizona State, Boise State, deserving teams to make it into the field, did not need to get byes. And if it’s four Big 10 teams that get the byes, well it’s four Big 10 teams who get the byes. It’s just the way it is. As long as we’re going to do it this way with using the committee to rank the teams, then just seed the field and rank them and move along.”
While fans of the Arizona State Sun Devils or Boise State Broncos this year likely enjoyed their teams getting first-round byes, Davis wants the committee to address the clear disparity between the SEC and Big 10 compared with the Big 12 or ACC.
“People talk about strength of schedule and how you’re going to measure that, and all those things are reasonable discussions. But it’s pretty obvious that there are a couple of conferences and a few teams that aren’t like the other ones,” Davis said.
“And that doesn’t mean they can’t lose … but we’re talking about seeding the field based on how you’ve looked, what you’ve done up to that point. And I think the better way to do it is to whoever has done the best … they get a more advantageous path.”
ESPN was accused frequently this winter of siding with the SEC. After Nick Saban pushed for his former program to make the bracket on the selection show, Kirk Herbstreit ripped Indiana for its entry into the Playoff.
Nick Saban reacts to the CFP Selection Committee’s decision to put SMU into the College Football Playoff field over Alabama. 🏈📺🎙️🏆 https://t.co/ZVVfzFwggY pic.twitter.com/Im5VgIPtiX
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 8, 2024
While Davis argued that ESPN does not have bias toward the SEC, he used the selection show in December to advocate for rewarding the top conferences more.
Asked by host Bryan Curtis whether he was speaking directly CFP committee when he made that argument, Davis said yes. The longtime ESPN host believes his experience should be valued by college football leadership.
“I think that when you’ve done something as long as some of us have, that doesn’t mean they have to [listen], but it’s like, ‘Hey, I’ve evaluated this, I’ve made a judgment on it,'” Davis said. “Whether you agree with that judgment is up to you and the powers that be.”
At the same time, Davis respects the committee and college football leadership. He emphasized that his comments were not intended to clown the committee or the CFP, but simply to use his platform to improve the product.
Davis made the distinction that while he doesn’t believe anyone should weigh his opinion on the quality of one team or another, he believes a show like GameDay can carry weight on the big-picture matters facing the sport.
“I hope they respect me enough to think about it, [but] I’m under no illusion that it carries any real influence. And that goes for anybody else on our set,” Davis said.
“This whole idea that me or one of the analysts can influence who might get in, I wouldn’t look at that way when I’m talking about who I like better. But something like this that’s procedural and sort of an overarching view of the Playoff is something where you say, ‘I think this is wrong.’ I’ve said this to the committee members, I think this is wrong and I think you guys should change this. Whether they do or not, it’s not going to be because I said it. I just hope it gives them something to think about.”
