Coaches Corner archive

Updated: August 17, 2010, 4:09 PM ET

Coaches Corner archive

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Bowl Championship Series

COACH QUOTES

	Coach	School	Quote
	Bob Stoops	Oklahoma	"In the end, I would say, overall, no (to a playoff in college football). I would say college football right now, when you look at the attendance, when you look at television viewership, (it has) never been better. And therefore, from coast to coast, everybody is watching the regular season because it's so important. In the end, the bowl system and the people that attend the bowls -- and there's a good number of them -- are great for administrators, your fan base, and (bowl games) are five-, six-, seven-day experiences. To think they're going to coexist with the playoff is not going to happen. I don't see it happening. Therefore, in the end, which do you want? And I think overall, the players would prefer the bowl system and having the bowl experience, and I just don't see (a playoff system) happening any time soon." (Interview with ESPN's Josh Elliott, Aug. 12, 2010)
	Rich Rodriguez	Michigan	"In Division I-A football, every game is a playoff. Once you lose one game, you're mostly out. If you lose two, you're definitely out. We got 12 playoff games. Teams take that approach. That's probably why there's so much interest. You stub your toe, you can never get back in."
	Kirk Ferentz	Iowa	"I've given it a lot of thought, and I think it's an awful thought [of an NFL-style playoff]. I've coached in the National Football League, and college football's not the National Football League, it's entirely different. This is just one person's opinion, but to even think it's workable, it's feasible, and good for anybody involved is ludicrous. We ask so much of these guys it's just unbelievable. We ask an awful lot of them as far as the football part, yet we want them to be exemplary students, we want them to be exemplary citizens, and that's all right, but how much more blood do we want to take out? At some point you have to put the welfare of the players (first). That should be our guiding light on all of our thinking. If we go down the playoff road, then we're not thinking that way. We're appeasing someone else, not the players."
	Bobby Petrino	Arkansas	"The season is really long. It puts a tremendous amount of stress and fatigue on our players. Everybody needs to relax a little bit and understand the players are here to get an education. Let's make the conference championships a big deal and make the bowl games a reward. I hope that we never do see a playoff."
	Chris Petersen	Boise State	"While I'm sure there are some ways to improve the current system, it has worked very well for Boise State. We've been to two BCS games in the past four years, and that would have been pretty much unheard of 10 years ago." (Click here for original article.)
	Jim Tressel	Ohio State	"Right now, we have a good system. That's not to say we won't improve it. How it will improve over time we'll find out, but I wouldn't be in favor of scraping what we do. There are too many things to keep in mind, bowls, student athlete welfare, all the rest. I wouldn't start over." (Click here for original article.)
	Mike Riley	Oregon State	"I like the bowl system. I like the opportunity for a lot of teams to have a successful season and to get a chance to go to a bowl game. We don't need to limit that to whatever the playoff deal is. I've been involved in small college playoff systems. It was fun, it was great but it wasn't perfect. The system we have now is as close as we can get to a national championship." (Click here for original article.)
	Mark Richt	Georgia	"I think college football has the most exciting regular season of any sport because there is not a playoff system. The whole season is a playoff system." (Click here for original article.)
	Gary Patterson	TCU	"I don't think you can [have a 16-team playoff], No. 1, because of academics, because of health of players. I think what you will find out is all these guys will go in the first round of the draft, and you are going to tell them they are going to play four more games? You'll get guys who say, 'I don't know if I can do that. Why should I risk the rest of my career with four more games? I want to support my team, but I also have a family back home that doesn't have much, so why do I do that?' " (Click here for original article.)