What a College Football Playoff Selection Committee Should Look Like in 2014

Now that we know that we will likely get a college football playoff in 2014 (when the BCS cycle ends), the question now is, how will these teams be decided? The BCS commissioners have all agreed on a four-team playoff format. There are still issues that remain, but for the most part, it's safe to say goodbye to the BCS forever.

Now comes the hard part of trying to figure out how these top four-teams will be picked. Are we going to stay with the computer system and several different polls that include voters that likely haven't watched a football game in 30-plus years? Are we going to add important elements to the computers, such as margin of victory and strength of schedule? Or are we going to create a playoff selection committee similar to the way that college basketball does things?

All of the above is likely the most logical scenario, but now comes another question. Who will participate in this selection committee?

Many believe that ex-coaches will help make up the panel of voters, but we can't trust them. Bobby Bowden has already thrown his name into the hat about being a possible voter, but I don't want him picking those top four teams. What if the last two spots came down to Florida and Florida State, we know what team he has making it in the playoffs. You don't really think he would end up picking the Gators over a team he coached for 33 years, do you?

Vince Dooley is another name that has popped up as a possible voter, but he coached Georgia and his son currently coaches Tennessee. Can we really trust him to be honest if it came down to one of those two teams against a team in the ACC or Pac-12? 

The bottom line is that every ex-coach or current coach is bias towards the schools they were or are involved with, and at some point it will play a factor in the voting process. The point of having a college football playoff is to get the top four teams squaring off against each other. If everybody in the selection room is playing favorites, there's really no point in switching to a playoff to begin with.

I'm not saying there aren't honest people out there in college football. What I'm saying is that having Nick Saban on the committee picking between LSU and Alabama is not fair to anyone involved. Even if the Crimson Tide are the best team in the country, many will argue that he picked Alabama because that's the team he currently coaches. Who cares if he coached LSU at one point, it's the same team he left abruptly to coach the Miami Dolphins.

For the same reason coaches shouldn't be involved, athletic directors and commissioners may deserve to be out of the loop as well. Those people have their current schools' best interest at heart and will likely do anything to put that program in the top four.

So who should be on the committee and how many people are we talking about here?

The selection committee works perfectly well in college basketball, but we are talking about 68 teams that end up making the tournament when all is said and done. This are only four teams that will be selected, so the margin of error is a lot smaller here.

There needs to be an equal balance between the computer rankings and a human element, but deciding who gets to vote and how many people is the tricky part.

Regardless of who is on the committee, if there is a committee, or whether we stick with the computers, there will always be teams and fans that feel like they are the ones getting the short end of the stick. We may have a college football playoff in place, but the headaches are sure to continue, and the debates are just beginning.