Is Baylor Going Too Far by Hiring PR Firm to Make Case for the Playoff?

If you thought the days of BCS politicking would end in the playoff era, guess again. Settling things on the field is only part of the equation. The rest is still nothing more than good, old-fashioned lobbying. 

According to Jake Trotter of ESPN.com, Baylor has hired Kevin Sullivan Communications, a public relations company, to advocate on Baylor's behalf for a spot in the first College Football Playoff. The firm will not advocate directly to the playoff selection committee but rather to national media. 

It's a roundabout way to go about things. Media members do not have a vote in forming the playoff field, but perhaps appealing to them could somehow indirectly influence the committee. It's not like the committee members are holed up in underground bunkers with canned foods for months on end. 

Of course, if the committee is influenced by media preferences, then it has bigger issues than trying to select four teams. But that's another conversation for another day. 

For what it's worth, Baylor athletic director Ian McCaw said this week, via George Schroeder of USA Today, that "politicking shouldn't matter." However, as Schroeder notes, Baylor has consistently been ranked behind TCU in the playoff standings: 

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For the past several weeks, as TCU has consistently been ranked ahead of Baylor, [selection committee chairman Jeff] Long's explanation has been that the teams' resumes aren't similar enough for head-to-head to be applied. At the same time, he's characterized the differences among the contenders for the No. 4 slot as "very, very narrow" and "very close."

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The move makes sense on Baylor's part, though. Unless there's a playoff in which the field consists of nothing but automatic bids, there will always be a level of subjectivity involved in the selection process. Because of that, there will always be some form of politicking from the schools, even if it is publicly discouraged. 

The selection committee's job is to choose the four best teams at season's end. How and why it comes to that conclusion is the single most important, and most scrutinized, part of the process.

Baylor's job is to do everything it can to make sure it's one of those four teams—and by any means necessary, apparently. It owes absolutely nothing to TCU, the committee or anyone else. 

If Baylor thinks hiring KSC is going to help push it into the final four by this time next week, that's its prerogative. 

"Baylor University has enjoyed a long relationship with Kevin Sullivan’s team and brought them on board as additional support in telling the Bears’ story over the course of the last few weeks of the 2014 college football season," said Baylor Executive Associate A.D./External Affairs Nick Joos in an email response. 

Still, the plan is clear and already underway. An email sent to media members highlights, above all else, that Baylor beat TCU head-to-head 61-58 on Oct. 11. 

It's the opposite angle taken by TCU. Following last Thursday's win over Texas, Horned Frogs head coach Gary Patterson made his case that a team's whole body of work matters more than a head-to-head result.

"That's why I'm telling you that head-to-head doesn't make a difference," Patterson told Paul Myerberg of USA Today. "To me, it doesn't have anything to do with it at all."

Should both teams win this weekend—TCU plays Iowa State; Baylor plays Kansas State—they will be named co-champions of the Big 12. Officially, the conference will not recommend one team over the other if a playoff spot is on the line.  

Thus, it's up to the schools to make their cases; it's the medium in which they do it that's been different. They, along with anyone else, are entitled to do so in any way they see fit. 

Ben Kercheval is a lead writer for college football. All quotes cited unless obtained firsthand.