After controversial loss to Texas, and omission of BYU, Big 12 commissioner has plans
On the wrong end of a controversial call, Brett Yormark has the necessary video to ask that the officiating in major college football be addressed.
Doesn’t mean it will happen. Or even if it does that it will guarantee any measure of success.
The Big 12 commissioner was in Fort Worth on Monday to meet the new director of athletics at TCU, and the topic of conversation is how his league has performed this postseason, specifically the raw deals for both BYU and Arizona State.
Wearing hindsight’s 20/20 glasses, of those left out of the 12-team bracket, BYU, not Alabama, is the team most deserving of a spot that was ignored. And Arizona State maybe would have defeated Texas in the Peach Bowl had it not been for an officiating call that did not go its way.
Yormark can do nothing about either now except do whatever possible to ensure these types of developments are not repeated.
When college football’s major players convene next week for the national title game in Atlanta, Yormark said he plans to lobby his fellow conference commissioners to address the impossible math equation that is officiating.
“As the CFP becomes bigger — it’s a multi-billion dollar business now — they’ve got to go through an organizational redesign to make sure that they are staffed for this next chapter of the CFP, versus where it came from,” Yormark told the Star-Telegram. “And I think one of the things that has to be considered is a head of football that oversees officiating, that oversees, anything football related, so to speak. I think that’s critically important.”
Such a beast currently does not exist. As much as this makes sense, we are talking about college football, which moves almost at the speed of congress.
Yormark wants uniformity between the officiating crews across college football’s four major leagues.
He may have lobbied for this regardless of how this postseason has played out, but it became a priority because of one specific play in Arizona State’s overtime loss against Texas in the Peach Bowl, the national quarterfinal playoff game.
Arizona State and Texas were tied with 68 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter when ASU quarterback Sam Leavitt completed a 10-yard pass to receiver Melquan Stovall near midfield. Stovall held on to the ball despite a nasty hit from Texas defensive back Michael Taaffe.
Even in real time it looked like Taaffe’s hit fit the description of a “targeting” call, which would have resulted in a 15-yard penalty and an automatic first down. Replays were more conclusive that the hit was high, but the officials did not call a penalty after reviewing the hit in slow motion.
Arizona State punted, and Texas won in double overtime.
Considering the horrible state of Arizona State’s kicking situation, it’s no guarantee the Sun Devils would have won had the penalty been assessed. And Arizona State had its chances to win in overtime, too.
“I would like there to be a national standard when it comes to officiating for the CFP. It certainly isn’t the case right now,” he said. “And I would like to see the CFP bring on board a head of football, just like I have a vice president football for the Big 12 that handles everything football.”
Getting all four leagues to agree to this is not as easy as it sounds. They all have their own ideas, and officiating crews, and their preferred friends who could carry out this plan.
This will still be an easier task for Yormark than convincing the college football playoff selection committee to look harder at his league.
Both the ACC and Big 12 are in the same position with a selection committee that will always prioritize the brands from TheBigSEC10. It doesn’t matter that Tennessee, Oregon, Indiana and Georgia were all hammered in their respective playoff losses. Teams from the SEC and Big 10 will always receive first dibs, which puts Yormark’s league in a hard spot.
Arizona State, which was a double-digit underdog against Texas, acquitted itself by nearly defeating the Longhorns in what is thus far the best game of yet another year of playoff blowouts.
Watching at-large bid teams Indiana and SMU trounced in their respective playoff losses, at Notre Dame and at Penn State, respectively, put the selection committee’s choices under justified attack.
One team that should have been taken more seriously was BYU. The Cougars’ two losses — at home against Kansas, and at Arizona State — were by a total of nine points.
They easily handled Colorado in the Alamo Bowl, and are the 2024 Team That Got Screwed, with all due respect to Ole Miss coach and SEC PR man, Lane Kiffin.
“I don’t think anybody involved in the selection process gave them their due,” Yormark said. “Look at resumes, not logos. Certainly played out in the CFP when you saw ASU easily could have won that game. They could easily still be playing.
“BYU obviously had a great bowl game. Probably should have finished higher than they did. I think ultimately performance is much louder than all of the rhetoric. And certainly we’ve performed at a high level during bowl season, and specifically the CFP.”
Big 12 members Kansas State, Iowa St., BYU and TCU won their bowl games; West Virginia, Texas Tech, Baylor, Arizona State and Colorado lost. (Note that CU and BYU played each other because of bowl tie-ins that are still in place from the Pac-12).
“As we again discuss what’s going to go on next year with the CFP, we can clearly identify what the selection committee is going to focus on, what are the core metrics that are going to be considered?” Yormark said. “I’ve said it all along, I’m not sure strength of schedule was one that mattered as much as it should have.”
As Yormark has learned, strength of schedule is only a strength for TheBigSEC10. For the rest, strength of schedule is a widely accepted, and distributed, fallacy.
This story was originally published January 7, 2025 at 12:13 PM.
