Having won a national title in the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff, Ryan Day can reasonably be labeled an authority on the tournament. But that doesn’t mean he thinks the format is perfect.
Appearing on The Triple Option this week, Meyer said that the experience leading up to the tournament could use some improvements. He pointed out that bowl game hosts tend to give the players a great and fun experience in whatever city or hotel they’re playing at, and that isn’t the case in the College Football Playoff anymore.
“First off, the experience is something we really got to learn from,” Day said. “You know, I think that the player experience can be much better. I think that the focus needs to be on the players, and I think we need to look at a lot of it. Because, you know, the National Championship is not run by a bowl. The other ones are but, even the ones that are run by a bowl, as you guys remember, there used to be events. There was a lot that came with that. Now that’s no longer the case.”
Day believes that the College Football Playoff needs to do a better job of making the experience more memorable for the players, whether that’s giving them more things to do leading up to the games or by simply giving them “mementos” from their experience.
“It’s just like being on a road game, except you’re there a day earlier, but there’s no events like nobody going on any events, nobody’s leaving the hotel,” Day said. “I think that, you know, we need to consider moving the hotels outside of these big cities, because we’re not going to these events anymore. So I think being a little bit more secluded and looking at some of those locations is just better for everybody, especially for the players. We need to pour it into the players.
“These are the guys that are doing the work. So I think that we need, you know, the best food there is that could possibly serve these guys. I think it should be the best conditions. I think we should try to find as many mementos for these guys that possibly can be done, just little things that money can’t buy, but it stays with them forever.”
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The College Football Playoff and bowl games in general seem to have lost the luster of being special outside of simply being a game.
Maybe it’s something that the College Football Playoff can improve in in the future. It is still very early in its formation, after all.
What do you think can be done to improve on the experience moving forward?
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