After one season of the CFP, the "general consensus among the 10 FBS commissioners who comprise the playoff's management committee was a ringing endorsement of success," according to Heather Dinich of ESPN.com. Dinich: "Don't expect major changes in Year 2 because there won't be any." They "simply aren't needed." The selection committee is "expected to meet in Indianapolis in early April to review the season, and the commissioners will meet with playoff executives in Dallas at the end of April." The majority of commissioners said that the only significant change in '15 should be "fewer than seven weekly rankings." When the rankings were initially discussed, it was "proposed they would be released every other week." Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said that he would "ask the group to consider 'a poll midseason, a poll at Week 9 and a poll at the end' to avoid 'the abrupt fluctuations you sometimes had this year.'" Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson said that he would "suggest three or four rankings and releasing them every other week in November, before the final ranking in December." Thompson: "We don't need seven. I know ESPN likes seven. It's great ratings, but there's other ways you get around it. It's good information because all week you can argue back and forth ... so it's all good for the sport. But they don't mean anything, quite honestly" (ESPN.com, 3/8). But in DC, Matt Bonesteel asked, "Does anyone honestly think ESPN is going to give up a weekly show that gets good ratings and likely is quite cheap to produce? Not a chance" (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 3/9).
STUCK IN THE MIDDLE: ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg wrote under the header, "Midwest Must Push Hard For CFP Title Game." Minneapolis is the "only Big Ten/cold-weather city confirming its bid for the title game" in '19 and '20. Sources said that Indianapolis is "reviewing the CFP's request for proposal and could decide to place a bid." Rittenberg noted a New York/New Jersey group, "now part of the Big Ten footprint, also is considering a bid," and perhaps "another Big Ten city, like Detroit, will throw its hat in the ring" (ESPN.com, 3/9).
MAY MADNESS? In Phoenix, Dan Bickley wrote there are "whispers of a movement inside the NCAA to make sweeping, much-needed changes in college basketball," with some advocates wanting to make it a "one-semester sport, starting in mid-December and ending sometime in May." Arizona State VP/Athletics Ray Anderson said, "There would have to be some real compelling arguments to think that March Madness could be re-created and improved. The calendar is already pretty full. And in May, a lot of people are graduating, a lot of people are moving on." Bickley wrote college basketball's regular season is becoming "dangerously irrelevant," with attendance, quality of play and scoring "down across the board." Starting a season in mid-December would "clear the decks for college basketball." Arizona AD Greg Byrne said, "We need to look at different things that could impact college basketball. It's an outside-the-box idea, and one worth having a discussion about" (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 3/7).
