Sometimes, we are the TV executives and they are us. We like to get after them and blame them for things, which they mostly deserve.
But all of us — execs, fans, rights holders, stakeholders, headset holders, anyone who cares about college football and isn’t a college football coach — should gasp together at what came out of the mouth of Nebraska coach Matt Rhule this week. Not because he’s wrong. Because he was honest and he’s too right for comfort, which means we’ve found something about the College Football Playoff that actually merits change.
More teams? The first 12-team Playoff sure seemed good to me. Auto bids, four apiece for the SEC and Big Ten and a pittance of two apiece for the ACC and Big 12? Super, if you want to declare that college football is a rigged status pageant more than it is actual competition, and if you’re fine endangering its long-term health at the expense of your selfish, gluttonous, short-sighted inclinations.
A selection system that more explicitly rewards quality nonleague scheduling? That’s actually worth discussing. Rhule laid out why very clearly on “The Triple Option” podcast, in an answer to a “one last thing” question from Urban Meyer.
Meyer told Rhule he’s “really worried” about nonconference scheduling moving forward — and he should be, now that he’s a TV guy — because “it’s the right thing for Ohio State to play Texas (to start the 2025 season), but why?
At the end of the day, Ryan Day has got to make the Playoff. Matt Rhule has got to make the Playoff,” Meyer said, mentioning series fans would love such as the Nebraska-Oklahoma rivalry that was killed by realignment (read: TV people) and reprised in 2021-22. “It’s great for fans, but is it great for Matt Rhule and the Huskers?
Why would you ever… why would you ever play those games? If we’re being completely honest. Coach Meyer, I’m at the point in my career where, in my fourth job and getting fired in the NFL, I kind of say what I feel nowadays. I could care less.
The first part sure isn’t enough, not for a coach who is judged on results and, in today’s world, will have a limited amount of time to at least get his team into the College Football Playoff or expect a pink slip. I wouldn’t blame any Nebraska fans for being annoyed with Rhule, by the way. He just killed the spring game. I’m sure Nebraska isn’t charging fans less for their tickets in 2026, but Tennessee has been replaced with Bowling Green.
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