Joel Klatt makes his comfortable living off the media circus surrounding college football.  He is not an impartial voice, and, even if he is better than some at balancing bias, he is still coming from the position of an inherent conflict of interest, where his financial interest is tied to the expansion of the playoff.  What these people who churn out this drivel about expanding the playoff fail to acknowledge (which was the main reason I watched college football and seldom watch the NFL, and was actually once a motto that college football used a generation ago) was that the regular season WAS the playoff, and every week mattered immensely. I was always attracted to college football because the intensity of big games, even in week 1, was unrivaled by any sport.  Of course, those were the days when Michigan might play UCLA, Notre Dame, Boston College to start the season, rather than the trash games we have now. The product is corrupted- probably irrevocably- by money and is simply a Saturday version of the NFL now, complete with free-agency, essentially two conferences, about the same number of teams in the playoff, nobody eliminated from contention with a couple early season losses.  Boring.  Thank god Harbaugh took us there in the final year before this Armageddon.  That will probably keep me satisfied until I'm in a pine box at this point.  

Klatt lost his claim to objectivity when he openly advocated for Bama and Texas to be in the CFP over FSU.

Let's say the B1G gets 3 auto-bids.  What exactly is going to be the procedure to determine them?

The Champion, of course, that's 1.  The Conference Championship Game loser, sure, that's 2.

But then #3?  I can foresee where a common scenario is "4 teams all tied, 7-2 in conference, but only a couple games were played between them.  3 of these teams are 10-2 overall, but 2 of them played absolute cupcakes OOC, no P5 teams.  The third played a slightly better OOC, 1 P5 team but a non-Top 25.  The 4th team is 9-3 overall, but played 2 very tough OOC games, splitting with a pair of Top 15 teams."

How do we decide among that?  I suppose we can derive a formulaic algorithm similiar to the NFL tiebreakers to decide.  But that's tough, NFL teams typically have many many many more games in common with each other.  More likely - some person(s) is going to decide the 3rd B1G auto-bid.

So, in the end ..... it may be a "room full of stuffed shirts" deciding anyway.

What I don't really get is why anyone particularly cares about auto-bids as they apply to the SEC or B1G.  Those conferences are going to get at least 3 teams in per year each based on merit, and so just making that official doesn't seem particularly onerous.  

If Warde has chosen the better approach (and it's really hard for me to see that he has), he should leave anyway -- there are plenty of problems in the world more pressing than Michigan athletics where his wisdom will be needed.

Since when does appeasement get people off your back?  In the history of everything, when a group of people succumb to an oppressor and appease their desires, that oppressor just continues to take more and more.

Warde should have been fired years ago, but he runs a fine administrative bureaucracy with good budget control.

Again, Warde sued the Big 10 to overturn Harbaugh's suspension.  The idea he didn't "defend" UM is wrong - Chris Partridge seemingly doing the one thing you shouldn't do during an investigation and telling players via text/messaging to not cooperate and possibly even lie is why they dropped that suit.  

And yeah, then Harbaugh left to the NFL but UM is still in the Big 10 and unless you want to be fucked around with by the conference and the NCAA for years to come he's going to have to repair that relationship.  I'm sure that was a mandate from Santa Ono as well, since he doesn't want UM to constantly be nicked for spurious reasons as well by an angry, petty conference.  The conference is run by a shitty boss but he's still got some power over UM, and so while it may be fun to thumb your nose at him that's likely only going to lead to long-term headaches.

These are all good points - I wonder if schools considered the rising cost of travel when agreeing to these changes. Flying your teams outside of your region can get expensive - I imagine the 501c tax status helps to a degree. 

The problem with people using "more revenue" to justify what is being done to college sports is this: almost *none* of that revenue is going to a damned thing outside of the athletic department.  It doesn't help the overall student body or university operations in any significant way (it might help the non-revenue student athletes, but only as a crux and cover for the monetization of the revenue sports).

At the same time, universities have become much more expensive to go to and to run over time.  Public funding has been drying up and competition between the schools for the best students has ramped up.  I wish college football wasn't tearing itself apart as well, but expecting universities to not maximize revenue is probably not realistic.

I hear your point but I'll stop short of being sympathetic.

Like, I want to be; it's true that state governments have pulled the plug on higher education.  But Michigan is also petty & greedy.  If you handed Michigan $100 billion with no strings attached, they wouldn't lower tuition by a single penny.

He doesn't look a day over 3001.

It’s all about the Benjamin’s (sex life)

baby

Sadly I feel the same way but the decision makers do not care.....why? Because they replaced you and I with thousands and thousands of more young students/families/fans each year....it's an endless supply of revenue streaming. 

I partially agree and disagree with your thoughts.

Certainly, it's become more "professional."

But, for me, the connection isn't so much to the individual players as it is to the entire experience and institution.  Both of my parents went to Michigan.  I met my wife at Michigan.  Both of our kids are current students.  

There's nothing like that feeling I get when we exit on to Main Street on football Saturdays...and the buzz of excitement that you can feel as you get closer to Michigan Stadium.  Then, walking in to the stadium and getting settled in to the seats we've had for a very long time.  Finally, the emotions I feel when the team rushes on to the field to "The Victors."   Always brings a tear to my eye and/or gets the adrenaline flowing.  

Were it not for Michigan, my life would be very different...and less rich.  

The names on the jerseys don't matter as much to me.  

If Warde doesnt let Juwan go he will be tied to the next season as being personally responsible. This time next year when UM is 10-20 or worse it will be a no brainer that Juwan has to go and guess who is going with him? Warde has a chance to save his ass or tie himself to Juwan's back to back program breaking seasons. 

Bunch of Leeds train spotters.

#NoOneLikesUs #WeDontCare

Early to bed, early to rise, as the man once said

Schemy, Matt Weiss, Connor Stallions, HC suspended half a season, Mel Person, worst Bball season in 60 years, BBall coach getting in his 3rd altercation and losing a program leader in Sanderson -also this after his zero tolerance policy was in place, losing the best BBall, football and baseball coach our program has ever had (yeah yeah I know just bad luck I get it).

I dont know man that is a helluva smoking gun. Scandal free you say?

Yessirr. I’ve been telling people, M cares more about The Brand than anything else. And from the University’s perspective, the best value for football broadcasts is the ability to show that nice Michigan Medicine ad with the snazzy, acoustic strings take on “The Victors” — that’s the real money shot. 

As for fandom/intangibles <insert quirky cat pic> to quote Ivan Illich, “Money devalues what it cannot measure.” So apart from how our fandom can be commodified and made into profit, the presence of gaudy hordes of cash flowing through the college sports apparatus not only displaces the significance of our fandom and related priorities in a relative sense - it also casts a shadow on all of it, making it invisible to all but the at least moderately thoughtful among the decision-makers, themselves a dying breed.