Mic'd up
With zubin mehenti
Zubin is an ESPN studio anchor and host of Goal Line. We caught up with him (pun intended) for a few minutes to get his point of view on college football’s new playoff format.
-
1
If you were to sum it up in a nutshell, what do you think about this new playoff format?
What I like about it is that it's going to be contested in a way that every other professional and collegiate sport in this country is contested. With playoffs. College football is the only one in its 145-year history that has had some sort of indecision in deciding who the best team in the country is. And if every other collegiate sport can do it, there is no reason why the most popular college sport can't.
-
2
Who do you think benefits most from this new playoff format?
The fans. A1, the fans. Because the fans are what make college football special. I've often said they're the most passionate group of people alive. Pro football is the most popular sport in the country, but you don't see the tailgating and the traveling in the pro game like you do in the college game. People are basically spending their entire fall, and people are rearranging weddings so they don't have to miss college football games.
-
3
What excites you most about this massive game changer?
I think the number one thing in the playoffs is clarity. There aren't two teams that are going to be able to say, we're the best. No, the definition of best equals one.You weren't among the best, you were the best. So if that's the case, this playoff is going to help us get to one team and one team only, and that's what people want. They just want a little bit of clarity. Who is the best. Let's find out on the field.
-
4
How many consecutive hours of football are you going to be watching on New Year's Day now?
I think it's very fair to say that the two semifinal games and the championship game will be bigger than any major sporting event in America besides the Super Bowl. It will be bigger than the World Series, the NBA Finals, any golf major, any tennis major, any auto racing event, the National Hockey League. And I feel very safe in saying that because we are a football-first country, and this is an unprecedented step.
-
5
What's the buzz on the turf, if you will, from coaches and players?
They're excited. A lot of it comes down to, it's something the fans have clamored for. And in the big-time world of professional sports, as you know, sometimes the fans' voice is muted. It shouldn't be. The fans are going there, the fans are watching on television. They are helping to pay these athletes' salaries. But it's very unique in college football that the fans' voice is heard. They have been clamoring for this for a long time. So maybe it's a little bit overdue, but I think people are really looking forward to it.
-
6
What did you think of the new championship trophy? I thought it was pretty nice and very modern looking.
It's pretty unique. I think trophies need to be large, they need to be seen, they need to be put in a case. I like it. I agree with you. It's sleek, it's modern and it's new. And if we're going to have a new playoff, I'd rather have something that looks sleek, modern, and new because essentially those are three words that describe the college football playoff.
-
7
Do you see this college football playoff as being a catalyst to perhaps even more tweaks in traditional football?
It's a good question. I think it's going to take awhile, and I think fans are going to clamor for this too. We live in a society where more is good, more is better, so we're in a situation where if you have four teams and fans love it, if this thing takes off in popularity, I think one tweak would be seeing the field expand from four teams to eight teams to perhaps more.
-
8
Great. Thank you. Are you on the selection committee, Zubin?
I'm not on the committee. It would be amazing to be a fly on the wall because it's unprecedented. But I think that some of the criticism that might be coming their way, I'll be glad to sit it out.
-
9
Last question. How do you think this new playoff format will affect all the other bowl games that will be happening?
It's not going to have much of an effect. I think that's the biggest distinction we can make from an educational standpoint. I think a lot of people feel like, well, once you have this playoff, and everybody else is left fending for scraps, and that's not the case at all. Those college football playoff games will simply be a semifinal and a final. And the other games will still exist just the way that they were. It's not going to hamper anybody's ability to play in a bowl game just because we have these new games. And really, that's the beauty of college football.