Matt Rhule says the quiet part loud: College football planning will go to the crisis

Sometimes we are the TV executives and we are. We would like to meet you and accuse you of guilt for things that you mostly deserve.

But all -managers, fans, rights holders, stakeholders, headset owners, everyone who takes care of College football and is not a college football coach -should snap for air this week together with what came from the mouth of the Nebraska trainer Matt Rhule. Not because he is wrong. Because he was honest and is too comfortable for consolation, which means that we found something about the college football playoff Actually earn changes.

More teams? The first 12-team playoff seemed to be good. Automatic bids, four per piece for the Sec and Big Ten and part of two per piece for the ACC and BIG 12? Great if you want to explain that college football is more than a real status competition than an actual competition, and if you endanger its long-term health at the expense of your selfish, smooth, short-sighted tendencies.

A selection system that explicitly rewarded the non -lying planning of the quality? This is actually worth discussing. In response to a question from Urban Meyer, Rhule committed to an answer to an answer to “The Triple Option” podcast.

Meyer said to Rhule that he was “really worried” about planning the non -conference -and he should be now that he is a TV type -because “it is the right thing for the state of Ohio to play Texas (starting the 2025 season), but why?”

“At the end of the day, Ryan Day has to do the playoff. Matt Rhule has to make the playoff, ”said Meyer and mentioned that serial fans such as the rivalry of Nebraskaa-Oklahoma, which was killed by realignment (read: TV) and killed in 2021-22, was killed. “It's great for fans, but is it great for Matt Rhule and the Huskers?”

Rhule, an unpopular man in Knoxville, Tenn., Nowadays, because he had killed a house and a home in Nebraska Tenessee, which was to take place in 2026-27, already shook his head when Meyer got the question.

“Why would you ever … why would you ever play these games?” Said Rhule. “If we are honest. Coach Meyer, I am in my career at the point where I will be released in my fourth job and in the NFL, I say what I feel today. I could be less interested in. “

(Note: He thinks he could no less take care of it.)

Rhule continued: “Why would a big ten team be playing nine conference games in the world, why should you ever play one of these games?”

“How about the fans,” we scream in unison (add a whisper, “and TV people”).

The first part is certainly not enough, not for a trainer who is assessed according to results and only have a few time in today's world to bring his team to College Football playoff at least or to be expected. I would not accuse Nebraska fans of being annoyed by Rhule. He just killed the spring game. I am sure that Nebraska fans charge no less for her tickets in 2026, but Tennessee was replaced by bowling green.

And now Rhule is publicly angry with the idea of ​​taking care of the general quality of the product that its customers get so much.

Nebraska fans are of course as loyal, rabies and starved as they come. If Rhule wins, none is important that the players stay away from the eyes of potential poachers in spring, and the tailgles for bowling green and Houston Christian will still occur. When he loses, he is gone and I think you can put this on the list of symptoms.

Now that successful college football season will consist of up to 17 games, I suspect that every Power 4 coach prefers to keep things as easy as possible before the conference game. Rhule is only the one who said it loudly.

The challenge for the College Football is to answer Rhule's question as such: “You play a high quality not -league game against another Power 4 team, as a victory helps your case get into the playoffs and a loss cannot be buried.”

That depends on the selection committee. Yes, there is a strength of schedule metric, but we have a season in which Indiana reached the 12th place after playing a non -layer trio from Florida International, Western Illinois and Charlotte. It is not difficult to see how a trainer in the same league would try to throttle.

By the way, Indiana deserves to be 10,000th time. It is easy to argue. It is impossible to argue that Indiana deserves it to be in it And This non -conference planning is sufficiently important for the committee.

Here, the people who serve their own interests at the expense of the long -term health of sport with confirmation of the plan for car information could be received in abundance.

SEC Commissioner Greg Saney and Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petiti will not appear publicly and will answer for this ridiculous idea. But it may not matter if people take a moment to think and discuss the idea of ​​the Big Ten and Sec teams, because they know that the top four in every league will certainly arrive and a little more willing to pursue larger September games.

Possibly even a kind of Sec/Big Ten challenge? Does that hide the pot enough? Hmmmm?

Hell No. In addition to the actual devaluation of so many of the late stadiums of the regular season, that the car information would lead in addition to reducing the disputes in the committee ranking – argue a college football column if you have not noticed – I do not think that this would work anyway.

It is more likely that September no conference games like the NFL would be games. Who tries to get someone who is important when the conference race is the only one?

The committee has to play a role and it has to do it better. Rhule has hard to overdo the exaggeration in defense of his case and said: “The victories in the early season meant nothing in 2024” and “If they score points and at the end of the year people blow out, they will make the playoff.”

I would argue that Georgia's neutral annihilation of Clemson Georgia helped overcoming his later failures. The victory in Texas in Michigan gave him a perception lead that had decided after the fading of Michigan, Tennesses Rout from Nc State did the same despite a similar fading and this SMU, which is in favor of a data point, in favor of a data point, in favor of a data point in favor of a data point, in favor of a data point in favor has a good time in favor of a cheap scheduling. Teams can also help these games like this.

We only need auto -bids for champions and a committee that rewards victories in significant non -league games than is punished for losses in these games. This has to be prioritized, coaches have to be made clear, and maybe it has to be officially and mathematical.

And if you believe that this is a stupid idea, talk about a few games to improve the conference championship weekend. Keep these TVs on the arm length.

(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)