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- Texas A&M’s Mike Elko says coaches’ opinions on the College Football Playoff are driven by self-interest.
- Elko stated that coaches, conferences, all advocate for playoff formats that serve own needs.
- Elko would like a unified leadership structure, but he says that’s unlikely to happen. Why? Self-interest.
MIRAMAR BEACH, FL – Nobody’s going to listen to Mike Elko. He’s just a football coach.
Nobody should listen to Elko, either — not on matters such as the size and shape of the College Football Playoff. Because, he’s just a football coach.
Hey, don’t take it from me. Take it from Elko.
“It doesn’t matter what we think,” Elko, the Texas A&M coach, told a room full of reporters at SEC spring meetings. “I’m very self-aware.”
These same reporters then spent the next 15 minutes asking Elko what he thinks about issues such as the CFP and college sports governance.
Mike Elko: Coaches consider issues from a place of self-interest
Elko kept returning to his central theme: It really doesn’t matter what he thinks — and he’s biased anyway.
When it comes to the CFP, he’s spot-on.
Just about every coach wearing a quarter-zip inside this beachfront resort has an opinion on how big the playoff should be and how teams should be selected.
But, coaches’ playoff opinions shouldn’t matter much in this debate. Why? Once again, take it from Elko: When a coach tells you the size and shape he prefers for the playoff, trust his opinion comes from a place of self-interest and self-preservation.
“None of us are answering for the good of the sport,” Elko said. “We’re answering for the good of ourselves.”
Yep.
Why a college football commissioner (or a CEO) probably won’t happen
When Tennessee’s Josh Heupel or Kentucky’s Will Stein or Missouri’s Eliah Drinkwitz throw support behind a 24-team playoff, trust that it’s because they think a bigger playoff would benefit them.
Or, more specifically, they think (or, at least, they hope) it’ll help their job security.
This idea of self-interest-shapes-all-opinion extends beyond the coaches’ room.
The Big Ten wants the playoff format (24 teams) it thinks will be best for its conference.
The SEC will want a format that works best for its league.
ESPN wants a playoff that’s best for its network (no bigger than 16 teams).
Fox wants a playoff size that’s better for its network (24 teams).
Who’s looking out for the good of the sport, on the whole?
Nobody.
“We’re a billion-dollar industry that’s getting governed in a lot of different separate pockets, not with one unified leadership,” Elko said.
“Has there ever been an industry like this in the world? In the history of the world? Probably not.”
Elko kept insisting he didn’t have the answers, and nobody would listen to him even if he did, but he kept making sense, so we kept asking him questions.
Like, what’s the potential solution to college sports’ sticky wickets that persistently result in squabbling and tire spinning?
“How about a billion-dollar industry having a CEO and a board?” Elko said.
He’s under no illusion that’ll happen. Uniting college football under one CEO and one board would require certain influential individuals, like conference commissioners, to cede their power.
That’s not going to happen, is it?
As Elko says, this here is a get-mine business of self-preservation, above all.
A ‘forty’ team playoff?!
The self-preservationist coach living inside Elko says the bigger the playoff, the better.
“Forty (teams). Then, I won’t get fired,” Elko said.
I’m not so sure about that. That’s one area where Elko is off-base.
A mega-sized playoff won’t provide coaches with the job security they crave. Schools like Texas A&M aren’t going to build statues for coaches who lose in the first round of a 40-team playoff.
Big-boy football schools would fire coaches who lost in the first round of a super-sized playoff, just as North Carolina fired a basketball coach who lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
What if Elko wasn’t a coach? What if he was just Johnny Lunchbucket, American citizen and fan of college football, who’s not worried about self-preservation?
Would he still want a super-sized playoff in that case? Nah. Not a chance.
“We don’t have to find a number that lets everybody get in,” Elko said, after he puts his self-preservation aside.
“It’s OK to make it hard to get into the playoffs.”
That’s the opinion you get when a coach puts aside self-interest and self-preservation.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
