Barry Alvarez is not known for biting his tongue when asked about any particular subject and the Wisconsin athletic director and Hall of Fame coach is certainly not self-censoring himself when it comes to the College Football Playoff.
In a Q&A with fans recorded by The Athletic this weekend, Alvarez called (again) for the field to be expanded from four to eight teams and, perhaps most notably, said that the selection committee recently has not been following the guidelines to pick the teams for the playoff like they should.
“I was on the initial committee and I thought four teams in the playoff was good. It was great. It was much better than the two-team playoff decided by computers. Because I wanted to know who’s programming those computers and what are they putting in? I was never satisfied with that. I thought four really helped college football. I thought that would be it,” said Alvarez. “But when our league is left out of the playoff for three years in a row, I’m not happy with that. I don’t think that we have followed the criteria set by the commissioners in naming those four teams. There’s a way you can go to eight teams very easily, starting a week early with a bye with the top four seeds. You can go to eight teams easily. There are eight teams that really could have a chance to win. So I think that it will expand. I just don’t know when.”
Alvarez said further that there is an opening for the CFP to make changes “about a year from now” and that Big Ten commish Jim Delany is in favor of expansion beyond four teams.
The Badgers boss had plenty more to say about potentially selling beer at Camp Randall and one-time discussions with Notre Dame to become a permanent fixture on the Irish’s schedule but those Playoff comments are no doubt the eye-openers from his town hall this weekend.
Though Alvarez is far from the first to call for expansion, his words do carry weight as somebody who was a member of the very first selection committee and will surely lead to further talk about what is happening right now and going forward with regards to the postseason in college football.