July 24, 2025 • 9 mins
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Just a monster Thursday show made bigger and better by
the man sitting across from me right now, the executive
director of the College Football Playoff. We got Richard Clark
with us here on Radio Row. How's it going, mister Clark.
It's good to have you. Oh, Kyle, it is going great.
Thanks for having me. I do go by rich Okay, absolutely,
but I appreciate that, and it's great to be with
you right now.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I mean, this is a busy event. It's always great.
It's the unofficial kickoff to the football season. So we're
talking about all sorts of things, right Bill Belichick is here,
and how good's Clemson going to be? And how deep
does the conference go and all that. But I just
want to start with, you know, your impressions of the
first twelve team College Football Playoff last year. You oversaw it,
we got to I was so excited. I mean, I
think a lot of us were that we got to
see it for the first time because many of us
(00:41):
have been coveting that for a long time.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
How do you feel that it went.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I felt like it was fantastic. As a fan. Before
I took the job, I've been in a job a
year now, and like you, I always wanted to see
the playoff expand and I felt like it went as
well as it could have gone. We knew with one
hundred percent certainty that we weren't going to get at
one hundred percent right. There's some things that we needed
to change, but the way that it came off, I
(01:06):
couldn't have been happier. The first round was spectacular on campuses.
I went to the Notre Dame game, Ohio State game,
and the electricity in those stadiums was like nothing I've
ever seen. So we're really happy with how that went out.
And the quarterfinals and semifinals were just, you know, spectacular
performances by our Boll partners to put those games on,
(01:29):
and they bring the tradition and just that neutral feel
of the game so that we could just see the
teams for who they were compete on the field for
who's going to advance through the playoff. I thought they
did an amazing job. And and the championship game in Atlanta,
I'll never forget it. You know, it was the first
one I did so, but I thought that the whole
(01:50):
playoff was just really done in great fashion. We did
change the ranking and seeding of the you know, the
top four conference champion last year got to buy this year.
It's just gonna be done by straight seting. So however
their rank, that's how they're gonna be seated this coming year.
Twelve teams, and we're excited for this new format. But
we learned a lot and we're gonna get better every year.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
You mentioned it, you thought you knew going into it. Hey,
it's the first year of us doing this. We're probably
gonna have to tweak some things. Everything might not be
Was it immediately evident that, hey, these automatic first round
buys probably have to go.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
It's pretty close to the media, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
As soon as we got the bracket filled out, I
was like, okay, we could probably change that next year,
And the commissioners knew that too, so they were pretty
quick to come to a conclusion that we needed to
change it. They made the decision and we changed out
a few months ago. So I think it's gonna be
a lot better and it'll look more sort of like
(02:45):
what you would expect to see in a playoff bracket
and how it's laid out. So I'm real happy about that.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
You know, given what I do, I followed the news
every day. I got friends in college football, but I'm
not in those rooms where the debates are taking place
over how to move forward, how to take it to
fourteen or to sixteen.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
You know, I know there's five to eleven.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I know there's the other option, which doesn't have as
convenient a name, but you know there are all these
debates about it.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
How involved are you in terms of.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Weighing in as opposed to maybe mediating, Like, what is
your role in these discussions with conference leaders about how
to best proceed moving forward?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah? I think my role is more facilitating the discussion.
I do provide a recommendation, though, and I give them
my rationale for the recommendation, but I provide them options.
My team and I come up with. These are the
possibilities that you could look at, and the pros and
cons to each of the possibilities. Will provide a recommendation
(03:37):
and then that will start the discussion. And they don't
always take my recommendation, which is fine. You know, they're
ultimately the decision makers, but I want to give them
everything we can so that they can get to a
good decision. So a lot of his facilitation, they'll ask
for more information. There may be something that they need
to have to help guide them to a decision, and
(03:58):
we work hard to provide them everything they need to
get to an answer that that they'll be happy within
that all of college football can accept.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Rich Clark the executive director of the College Football Playoff.
He's with us here on site. Which you might not
know about him is that he was a pretty good
linebacker back in his day. You were, You were a
good football player back in the.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Well, yeah, US forty years ago, so I could say, yeah,
it was great because no one could prove otherwise.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
No Twitter, Right, that's right, But no, I know you were.
You were also the superintendent at the Air Force Academy. Yeah,
I believe they were ranked, you know, nationally under your
Air Force has a proud tradition all we all know that.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
But I'm at Army Navy every year.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You know, I just talked to those folks the other
day doing the show live, and you know I love
that event. But like, how did that experience and your
background both you know, playing there but also a retired
lieutenant colonel? You know, how does that military background playing
at the Air Force Academy help you?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I guess to be better at your job and doing
all of this.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Sure, well, I've always been huge into into athletics, and
while I was at the Air Force Academy as a superintendent,
obviously I paid very close attention to everything that we
did in our athletic program, and I was probably more
heavily involved than most because I did play. But here
here's the one thing that's kind of funny. When I
(05:08):
was a player our senior year, we were twelve and one,
we were ranked fifth in the nation. If we had
the college Football Playoff back then, we would have been
hosting a first round game at the Air Force Academy.
It would have been the most historic game we ever had.
And I just go man that like that, that was
probably the one year that it would have happened, But
how amazing would it have been. So now I put
(05:30):
myself in the shoes of you name the team in
the country. To have that hope, to have that opportunity
to maybe get into the playoff, to vye for the
for the national championship, it's just amazing. So I feel
very personal to make this an opportunity for the teams
to strive for and to shoot for and to have
(05:50):
as a goal in the beginning of the season, and
then when they get there, I want to make it spectacular.
I want it to be a lifetime event for them.
And I really take it very personally because I could
have been there as a young athlete, but now I
have the opportunity to provide that to so many others.
So I love this position. I mean, it's just great.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
It feels like I mean, the service academies have always
kind of been at a disadvantage when it comes to
college football, just because of the rigorous standards and it
being a little bit different. But what about anile era,
you know, in terms of you know, I guess not
outbidding for players. Like again, they're still doing it differently.
How do the service academies, you know, approach that?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
What do you think of that?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, well, the service academies aren't going to be able
to pay nil to any student. So really, a service
academy student athlete is planned for the love of the game,
that's right, because they have to give up a lot,
you know, and it's hard enough at a service academy,
but then when you pile on to preparing for a
Division I competition, right, it makes it even harder, but
(06:48):
they do it because they love it. Now, I would
say that most student athletes, if not all, do it
because they love it. And I also think that it's
okay that students get paid, you know, because they should.
We just to have good guardrails and do it in
a way that's ethical, that's above board. But you know,
they they earn it on the field, and their name,
(07:08):
image and likeness is valuable. So I think I do
think it's good. But at a service academy, it's just
it's not a factor for us, and we it's just
something that we have to accept and work around.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Down the street here at Bank of America Stadium, home
of the a SEC Championship game. It's important to Atlanta
the SEC title game. Same in Indy for the Big Ten.
Like how big a proponent are you advocate for, you know,
for the preservation of conference championship games as we move
forward with all this.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I am a huge proponent of preserving the conference championship
game and making it meaningful so that it the winner
of that game actually actually gets an advantage, you know,
and I think they deserve that, and so that's why
we preserved the top five conference champions will get into
the playoffs. Even though they don't get that buy, they're
still in the playoff. But that's athletics. That's what you
(07:56):
play for. Championships. You play to be a champion, and
and we have to have that as part of athletics,
whether you know it's at the conference level, the national level,
wherever it is, championships is what people strive for. Play
like a champion today. I mean, you know, the oldest program,
or maybe not the oldest, but one of the most
story programs, Notre Dame, that's their you know, that's their model,
(08:19):
play like a champion today. We all want to be champions,
so we have to hold on to that.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, I agree with you. Now, I know that your
focus is the playoff. And I don't want you to
think this is in any way political, But we just
had news come down. There was an executive order signed
a little while ago about college athletics and amateurism. You know,
there have been appeals to Congress to try to get
help those sorts of things. What's the right route to go, Like,
what level of political involvement helps college football? Is there
(08:43):
a level of political involvement that helps college football?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
That's hard to say right in my mind, it would
be good to leave it in the hands of the
NCAA and the Conference commissioners to really guide us in
that position. But sometimes, you know, when there's a standstill
or a stalemate, you know, the government can get involved
to kind of spur the process a little bit. So
(09:10):
I you know, I think it's it's better when the
government doesn't have to get involved. But if they do,
so be it, and we'll work with that. But you know,
hopefully this will this will help, and it'll it'll move
things to where they need to go.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Rich Clark, the executive director of the College Football Playoff
here at the de facto opening of the college football
season here at the a SEC Kickoff.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Great to meet you. Thank you for thank you. I
appreciate you having me
Just a monster Thursday show made bigger and better by
the man sitting across from me right now, the executive
director of the College Football Playoff. We got Richard Clark
with us here on Radio Row. How's it going, mister Clark.
It's good to have you. Oh, Kyle, it is going great.
Thanks for having me. I do go by rich Okay, absolutely,
but I appreciate that, and it's great to be with
you right now.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I mean, this is a busy event. It's always great.
It's the unofficial kickoff to the football season. So we're
talking about all sorts of things, right Bill Belichick is here,
and how good's Clemson going to be? And how deep
does the conference go and all that. But I just
want to start with, you know, your impressions of the
first twelve team College Football Playoff last year. You oversaw it,
we got to I was so excited. I mean, I
think a lot of us were that we got to
see it for the first time because many of us
(00:41):
have been coveting that for a long time.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
How do you feel that it went.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I felt like it was fantastic. As a fan. Before
I took the job, I've been in a job a
year now, and like you, I always wanted to see
the playoff expand and I felt like it went as
well as it could have gone. We knew with one
hundred percent certainty that we weren't going to get at
one hundred percent right. There's some things that we needed
to change, but the way that it came off, I
(01:06):
couldn't have been happier. The first round was spectacular on campuses.
I went to the Notre Dame game, Ohio State game,
and the electricity in those stadiums was like nothing I've
ever seen. So we're really happy with how that went out.
And the quarterfinals and semifinals were just, you know, spectacular
performances by our Boll partners to put those games on,
(01:29):
and they bring the tradition and just that neutral feel
of the game so that we could just see the
teams for who they were compete on the field for
who's going to advance through the playoff. I thought they
did an amazing job. And and the championship game in Atlanta,
I'll never forget it. You know, it was the first
one I did so, but I thought that the whole
(01:50):
playoff was just really done in great fashion. We did
change the ranking and seeding of the you know, the
top four conference champion last year got to buy this year.
It's just gonna be done by straight seting. So however
their rank, that's how they're gonna be seated this coming year.
Twelve teams, and we're excited for this new format. But
we learned a lot and we're gonna get better every year.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
You mentioned it, you thought you knew going into it. Hey,
it's the first year of us doing this. We're probably
gonna have to tweak some things. Everything might not be
Was it immediately evident that, hey, these automatic first round
buys probably have to go.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
It's pretty close to the media, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
As soon as we got the bracket filled out, I
was like, okay, we could probably change that next year,
And the commissioners knew that too, so they were pretty
quick to come to a conclusion that we needed to
change it. They made the decision and we changed out
a few months ago. So I think it's gonna be
a lot better and it'll look more sort of like
(02:45):
what you would expect to see in a playoff bracket
and how it's laid out. So I'm real happy about that.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
You know, given what I do, I followed the news
every day. I got friends in college football, but I'm
not in those rooms where the debates are taking place
over how to move forward, how to take it to
fourteen or to sixteen.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
You know, I know there's five to eleven.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I know there's the other option, which doesn't have as
convenient a name, but you know there are all these
debates about it.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
How involved are you in terms of.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Weighing in as opposed to maybe mediating, Like, what is
your role in these discussions with conference leaders about how
to best proceed moving forward?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah? I think my role is more facilitating the discussion.
I do provide a recommendation, though, and I give them
my rationale for the recommendation, but I provide them options.
My team and I come up with. These are the
possibilities that you could look at, and the pros and
cons to each of the possibilities. Will provide a recommendation
(03:37):
and then that will start the discussion. And they don't
always take my recommendation, which is fine. You know, they're
ultimately the decision makers, but I want to give them
everything we can so that they can get to a
good decision. So a lot of his facilitation, they'll ask
for more information. There may be something that they need
to have to help guide them to a decision, and
(03:58):
we work hard to provide them everything they need to
get to an answer that that they'll be happy within
that all of college football can accept.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Rich Clark the executive director of the College Football Playoff.
He's with us here on site. Which you might not
know about him is that he was a pretty good
linebacker back in his day. You were, You were a
good football player back in the.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Well, yeah, US forty years ago, so I could say, yeah,
it was great because no one could prove otherwise.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
No Twitter, Right, that's right, But no, I know you were.
You were also the superintendent at the Air Force Academy. Yeah,
I believe they were ranked, you know, nationally under your
Air Force has a proud tradition all we all know that.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
But I'm at Army Navy every year.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You know, I just talked to those folks the other
day doing the show live, and you know I love
that event. But like, how did that experience and your
background both you know, playing there but also a retired
lieutenant colonel? You know, how does that military background playing
at the Air Force Academy help you?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I guess to be better at your job and doing
all of this.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Sure, well, I've always been huge into into athletics, and
while I was at the Air Force Academy as a superintendent,
obviously I paid very close attention to everything that we
did in our athletic program, and I was probably more
heavily involved than most because I did play. But here
here's the one thing that's kind of funny. When I
(05:08):
was a player our senior year, we were twelve and one,
we were ranked fifth in the nation. If we had
the college Football Playoff back then, we would have been
hosting a first round game at the Air Force Academy.
It would have been the most historic game we ever had.
And I just go man that like that, that was
probably the one year that it would have happened, But
how amazing would it have been. So now I put
(05:30):
myself in the shoes of you name the team in
the country. To have that hope, to have that opportunity
to maybe get into the playoff, to vye for the
for the national championship, it's just amazing. So I feel
very personal to make this an opportunity for the teams
to strive for and to shoot for and to have
(05:50):
as a goal in the beginning of the season, and
then when they get there, I want to make it spectacular.
I want it to be a lifetime event for them.
And I really take it very personally because I could
have been there as a young athlete, but now I
have the opportunity to provide that to so many others.
So I love this position. I mean, it's just great.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
It feels like I mean, the service academies have always
kind of been at a disadvantage when it comes to
college football, just because of the rigorous standards and it
being a little bit different. But what about anile era,
you know, in terms of you know, I guess not
outbidding for players. Like again, they're still doing it differently.
How do the service academies, you know, approach that?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
What do you think of that?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, well, the service academies aren't going to be able
to pay nil to any student. So really, a service
academy student athlete is planned for the love of the game,
that's right, because they have to give up a lot,
you know, and it's hard enough at a service academy,
but then when you pile on to preparing for a
Division I competition, right, it makes it even harder, but
(06:48):
they do it because they love it. Now, I would
say that most student athletes, if not all, do it
because they love it. And I also think that it's
okay that students get paid, you know, because they should.
We just to have good guardrails and do it in
a way that's ethical, that's above board. But you know,
they they earn it on the field, and their name,
(07:08):
image and likeness is valuable. So I think I do
think it's good. But at a service academy, it's just
it's not a factor for us, and we it's just
something that we have to accept and work around.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Down the street here at Bank of America Stadium, home
of the a SEC Championship game. It's important to Atlanta
the SEC title game. Same in Indy for the Big Ten.
Like how big a proponent are you advocate for, you know,
for the preservation of conference championship games as we move
forward with all this.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I am a huge proponent of preserving the conference championship
game and making it meaningful so that it the winner
of that game actually actually gets an advantage, you know,
and I think they deserve that, and so that's why
we preserved the top five conference champions will get into
the playoffs. Even though they don't get that buy, they're
still in the playoff. But that's athletics. That's what you
(07:56):
play for. Championships. You play to be a champion, and
and we have to have that as part of athletics,
whether you know it's at the conference level, the national level,
wherever it is, championships is what people strive for. Play
like a champion today. I mean, you know, the oldest program,
or maybe not the oldest, but one of the most
story programs, Notre Dame, that's their you know, that's their model,
(08:19):
play like a champion today. We all want to be champions,
so we have to hold on to that.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, I agree with you. Now, I know that your
focus is the playoff. And I don't want you to
think this is in any way political, But we just
had news come down. There was an executive order signed
a little while ago about college athletics and amateurism. You know,
there have been appeals to Congress to try to get
help those sorts of things. What's the right route to go, Like,
what level of political involvement helps college football? Is there
(08:43):
a level of political involvement that helps college football?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
That's hard to say right in my mind, it would
be good to leave it in the hands of the
NCAA and the Conference commissioners to really guide us in
that position. But sometimes, you know, when there's a standstill
or a stalemate, you know, the government can get involved
to kind of spur the process a little bit. So
(09:10):
I you know, I think it's it's better when the
government doesn't have to get involved. But if they do,
so be it, and we'll work with that. But you know,
hopefully this will this will help, and it'll it'll move
things to where they need to go.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Rich Clark, the executive director of the College Football Playoff
here at the de facto opening of the college football
season here at the a SEC Kickoff.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Great to meet you. Thank you for thank you. I
appreciate you having me
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com