“It will give more teams a shot.”
That’s the argument I’ve bristled at the most this week as College Football power brokers have floated the idea of a 12-team playoff. It’s actually true when you think about the statement on its face. After all, Coastal Carolina and Cincinnati will actually get to lose in the playoffs and we won’t have UCF’s fake championship to mock.
But on the other hand, it’s not really true at all.
After all, Alabama is 35-10 against Top-10 opponents and 66-17 against the Top-25 since 2008. Clemson is 24-5 against the Top-25 since 2015. Ohio State is 25-5. The chances that an inferior team runs the table over four games is relatively remote.
The problem people are complaining about, for the most part, isn’t access. After all, college football has grown by leaps and bounds over the past 30 years precisely because it has ignored parity and allowed the blue-bloods to rule.
The problem is that even among the blue-bloods there is now too much separation.
I hate Notre Dame as much as anybody and it is fun to needle their fans about constantly losing in bowl games and the playoff, but it’s not a good thing that they don’t have a shot against the Clemson’s or Alabama’s of the world on a consistent basis.
Ohio State not ever losing to Michigan or Penn State is a problem. Clemson running roughshod over the ACC year after year isn’t ideal either. And while LSU, Florida, Georgia and Auburn have had their days in the sun, they’re all rotating around the death star that Saban has built in Tuscaloosa.
College Football will undoubtedly make more money if it expands to 12. But it isn’t going to solve the parity problem that exists at the top.
Here’s how they can.
Recruiting and Money
It’s no secret that recruiting wins championships.
You could argue that Clemson hasn’t been the recruiter that Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia have been, but the data is pretty clear that you don’t win consistently without winning at the recruiting game on a consistent basis.
So what metric correlates with recruiting the best? Is it the coach? Is it how close they are to major metropolitan areas? Is it the local cuisine?
Of course not. As with most things in life, it comes down to money.
Average recruiting rankings vs. recruiting spending for the top-50 spenders. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
The above chart looks at the average national recruiting ranking from 2018-2019 plotted against recruiting spending in 2017-2018 for the top-50 spenders in the NCAA (private institutions excluded). It turns out there’s a really strong correlation between spending and the average national recruiting ranking.
This isn’t a huge surprise, but I think it’s instructive. Yes, Saban is a great coach, but he’s spending nearly double the amount of money that Florida is. Georgia actually is double, which means that Dan Mullen starts the recruiting season with one hand tied behind his back.
What is also interesting is that there are a bunch of programs that are bunched between the $0.6-1.3 million spending mark, and their spending does not appear to correlate all that much with recruiting ranking. After all, Kansas is spending way more than Washington and the Huskies obviously are doing better.
Interestingly, most of my work has looked at recruiting in the context of winning championships, because that’s what Florida fans – and I – really care about. But if we look at how recruiting spending correlates with winning overall, the picture isn’t quite so clear.
Average ESPN FPI ranking vs. recruiting spending for the top-50 spenders. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
The above chart plots average ESPN FPI from 2017-2020 versus recruiting spending from 2017-2018. Yes, there is a correlation between spending and winning here, as we would expect. But the other thing to note is the huge cluster of programs between that same $0.6-1.3 million mark.
It turns out that when spending is even roughly equivalent, the results start to even out.
This explains the parity problem at the top. Georgia, Alabama and Clemson should win all the time. They’re outspending everyone by a significant margin. And what in the heck are Nebraska and Florida State doing?
But this also explains why the SEC is the best conference in the world. Eleven SEC programs make the list, and the average recruiting budget of those teams is $1.25 million. Compare that to the Pac-12, which has 10 teams on the list, but with an average recruiting budget of only $709,000.
Recruiting Salary Cap?
Now we have to be really honest with ourselves. Are we okay with Alabama and Clemson winning a 12-team tournament every year, or do we actually want a tournament that is more wide-open?
If we want the latter, it isn’t enough to just expand the field. Instead, I think that the NCAA needs to institute a salary cap on football recruiting.
What if Clemson had to decide between going after a big-time recruit in Florida or building a football facility with a slide? What if Dan Mullen could actually sell his winning record rather than having to sell the facilities that are now under construction?
Where do you set it? I’m sur ethere are mathematical models that could do a better job than just ballparking, but $1.5 million annually seems reasonable, annexed to some percentage of television deals. If you wanted, you could even have it be a 4-year rolling average so a team could spend $3 million one year but then would have a greatly reduced budget the next.
Immediately the giant advantage that Georgia, Alabama, Clemson, Texas A&M and Texas enjoy goes away, or is at least severely limited. In fact, this entire proposal only limits 6 total programs if $1.5 million is the cap number.
But what it does is bring everyone spending in the $1-1.5 million range (19 programs) into play. It also might then make strategic sense for a team currently spending between $0.75-1 million (23 programs) to bump up spending to compete.
To compete with Georgia right now, Florida, Auburn and LSU all need to double their budgets. These are old numbers and by the looks of the football facility being built in Gainesville, the Gators have decided to at least compete at this level. But this isn’t just an SEC problem.
Yes, Georgia and Alabama spend 111% and 83% higher than the average SEC program, but the same applies in the Big-12 (Texas, 83%) and ACC (Clemson, 100%). The problem actually applies in the Big-10 as well with Michigan and Penn State outspending the conference by more than 50%, but it turns out that Ohio State seems to be one program (5% above average) that wouldn’t be impacted by a cap.
Florida spends more ($1.15 million) than the averages of every other conference, but is actually 7% below the average spending in the SEC. It’s great being in the best conference in the country, but there are some downsides too.
Takeaway
I’m under no illusions. Expansion to a 12-team playoff is strictly a money grab.
But that money grab is going to mean more money in the pockets of teams – and conferences – that make the playoffs. That means that Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State are going to be able to increase their advantage in the arms race, as well as the entire SEC.
Without that money, these programs win 84 percent of the time against top-25 opponents. You’re not looking at a much better chance for a team ranked 12th.
In some ways, this argument is self-defeating. I’m an SEC homer and want the conference to continue its dominance. But I’m also someone who loves the regular season in college football and if the people in charge are going to ruin that, I want more parity.
If you want to know why, just look at the NBA.
There are only a handful of teams that have a real chance at an NBA championship every year. That’s because one player can make an outsized impact on a squad and so Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving teaming up in Brooklyn or LeBron James signing with the Lakers means the Pacers (my childhood team) have zero shot. The gap between the elite teams and the also-rans is just enormous.
But in the NFL, that isn’t the case. The salary cap has made the league so even that it’s not a surprise when a team goes from awful to the playoffs. The Patriots have still won a bunch recently, but their dynasty has given fans something to root against.
The Giants winning those two Super Bowls in 2007 and 2011 were somewhat fluky. But the fact that they were able to achieve those flukes is because the difference between the Giants and the Pats was relatively small.
With the current setup, there aren’t going to be a lot of flukes in college football. We already see that in the FCS playoff where North Dakota State has won 8 of the last 10 championships. Yes, Auburn might beat Alabama to win the SEC from time-to-time. But that just means they’ll have to beat the Tide again later in the playoff.
Ask Georgia how that works out.
Fostering Hope
I’m taking a long lunch today because friends of ours are adopting a little girl from the foster care system and I get to be in attendance.
I’m not allowed to divulge her name, but let’s just say that her home life was not ideal at the time she came to visit our friends. I’ve watched as they have loved this little girl, made her a part of their family, and protected her from people in the world who should be the ones most in love with her.
I don’t imagine that pain ever goes away.
My own family situation doesn’t give us the freedom to help in this way. But we have been blessed to be able to help financially. Foster families have all sorts of needs, from diapers to toys to just having a duffel bag for kids who show up at the door with all of their belongings stuffed into a trash bag.
But today is about a little girl who showed up and is officially becoming part of that family that welcomed her with open arms. I’m in awe of the sacrifice that family has made. I’m in awe of the difference that she has made in their lives. But most of all, I’m in awe of the way God works in our lives to take incredible pain and wrap it in some level of joy when people expand the definition of their family to include people who otherwise wouldn’t really have one.
Normally, I have something pithy to say at the end of one of these things, but I just don’t here. All I can say is, if you have the ability to help, please don’t pass up the opportunity.