The amazing thing is that Duffy Daugherty did not succeed in overthrowing the CFB structure - particularly when you remember he had the backing of Walter Byers, the most powerful man in the history of the NCAA, the guy who blocked televised games beyond a limited token amount for over 30 years before his oversight got whipped by Georgia and Oklahoma in front of the Supreme Court (the last meaningful victory for Georgia, quite frankly).
In 1966, Daugherty made a proposal that would have abolished the bowl games BEFORE they took ahold. Daugherty proposed an eight-team playoff consisting of the six conference champions and two independents. The six conferences at the time were - the SEC, the SWC, the Big 10, the AAWU (now the Pac 12), the Big 8, and the ACC. The first round would be played at the HOME FIELD of the higher seed.
Who makes the 1966 playoff?
Michigan State (9-0-1)
USC (7-4)
SMU (8-3)
Clemson (6-4)
Notre Dame (9-0-1)
Alabama (11-0)
Nebraska (9-2)
Wyoming (10-1)
So now let's see..
Notre Dame thumped USC, 51-0
Notre Dame and Michigan State tied at 10
Alabama beat Clemson, 26-0
Georgia Tech would make such a tournament despite losing to Georgia, who also had a better record
Of course, if this had happened, we wouldn't have anybody now saying, "But four-loss teams shouldn't be in the playoffs," either. And it would have been modified at least a bit so that maybe a conference could send a 9-1 team whose sole loss was to a 6-4 team that went undefeated in conference.
Daugherty's points:
1) would provide an undisputed national champion (remember - we're getting split titles every few years)
2) would include the bowl games
3) would be a financial windfall for schools because the TV revenue would be enormous
4) could be structured to allow participation of new conferences
5) all 120 NCAA schools (this is pre-1978 division) would share in the financial windfall
6) bowl games extend the season six weeks for 24 teams but the playoff would reduce this to four weeks for two teams and less than that for the other six
7) Daugherty credited Bud Wilkinson for first suggesting the idea a few years earlier (more as I find more)
Naturally, the dictators administrators got involved and you can figure how this was gonna end:
Colgate President Everett D. Eppy Barnes - "It would extend the season a full month"
(It never ceases to amaze me how even though that's the FIRST argument Daugherty addressed, the Kool-Aid drinkers come right back with it as though it was not addressed. This is how cults work btw).
But that wasn't he only objection. Former Florida and Georgia Tech assistant coach Arthur Marvin "Tonto" Coleman - who rose to become commissioner of the SEC in 1966 - objected to the playoff as well. Tonto would have made a fun poster on Tidefans if he could have just....well, lived to be 114 years old and coherent. Coleman objected thusly: "Who's going to decide which independent team is selected? There might be four teams in the Southeastern Conference stronger than any representative from any other part of the country. We'd have nothing to gain."
Bear in mind he said this mere days after Alabama had been robbed of the 1966 national championship and was clamoring for a game with Notre Dame.
In May of 1967, there was consideration of forming a committee to study a playoff that would include the bowl games.
In September of 1967, though, Daugherty developed his plan some more, stating that what would have happened the week after the 1966 Iron Bowl would have been the following:
UCLA vs Nebraska
Alabama vs SMU
Wyoming vs Notre Dame
Michigan State vs Georgia
(Hilarious to me that he completely ignored the Athletically Challenged Conference, but I digress).
He also me the arguments head-on:
1) "You're going to ruin bowl games" - 100,000 fans tuned in to watch the Rose Bowl, and it was between a 9-2 Purdue and a 7-4 USC with nothing on the line (a bad argument since other games determining a champion changes interest in particular games)
2) "It will hurt academics" - he points out the games will be played while teams are already in condition and on the go without a layoff, and only 2 teams will play at the end.
3) "this is a gimmick for a better TV contract" - Daugherty denies it's a gimmick but DOES say it's going to increase the TV revenue inevitably.
Within a month, though, Daugherty was conceding defeat, with the language generally associated with whomever loses a battle: "It makes so much sense, I doubt it will be accepted." (For all the bashing I do of the Big Ten - pretty much all of it justified - I have to tip my hat to Daugherty and Dr. Novice Fawcett of Ohio State for their efforts to avoid what eventually happened).
In January 1968, the NCAA announced the formation of a special committee to develop a "Super Bowl of College Football" playoff system that would encompass all 600-plus schools then aligned in some way with the NCAA.
On May 4, 1968, the NCAA special committee announced a playoff was dead. This time it was the coaches who killed the idea. In fact, it was the SEC and Tonto who (largely) killed the plan, and it makes sense so long as one is talking money and not trophies (again - is any of this sounding familiar?). Tonto's stated excuse was the notion the SEC might have the four best teams in the country (a truly laughable idea in 1966, when most of the SEC was still lily white and never played against teams with African-Americans - ever). But if you look at some simple geography, it's completely understandable why the SEC bull snotted their way through this one.
The SEC - unlike most of the other conferences - supplied the bulk of bowl teams. The Big Ten and AAWU refused to participate in anything but the Rose Bowl. So the SEC was providing the muscle and TV viewers in games played in Texas (Bluebonnet and Cotton Bowls), Louisiana (Sugar), Florida (Orange and Gator), and Tennessee (Liberty).
Why would the SEC give up all of that when they didn't have to do so? Because the SEC was far ahead of other leagues in a number of areas, they had already figured out revenue sharing to the point it always made sense for Tulane and Vandy and Mississippi State to vote as one bloc unit and protect the monies. The plan as it was developing would have rotated the championship game amongst seven different bowls over a seven-year period of time.
Paul Bryant - no surprise here - was the dominant voice. He was all for an undisputed national champion, but he also did not want to "hurt the bowl games." Nobody ever benefited more from his negotiating savvy or relationships with the bowl powers that be, and Bryant knew what he had to do to placate everyone. It was left to Purdue Head Coach Jack Mollenkopf to explain the six objections to the "Super Bowl," and he actually managed to make Kirby Hocutt sound like Hocutt has a lick of sense. Here are his objections, some of which are ludicrous:
1) it's actually better to have a bowl game with a break, a playoff would be too hard on the players
2) teams in the north would have difficulty practicing for 2-3 weeks (not practicing in December would explain their wretched Rose Bowl performance of the 70s and 80s I guess)
3) Mollenkopf does not feel players want another game (he's a Purdue, he's not gonna have to worry about it)
4) it would interfere with academics
5) there's no "equitable way" to determine the teams
6) the school faculties would not permit such a game
(I'm still trying to figure out how if faculties are THIS POWERFUL, how in the world did we ever have football wagging the dog of the school at Penn State, FSU, and SMU, and how did Georgia manage to push Jan Kemp around?)
Indiana Coach John Pont - who had just been to the Rose Bowl - mouths the all-too-familiar, "Well, I'm for a playoff so long as it includes the bowls."
Then there's every Bama fan's favorite yutz, Ara Parseghian, who stated his opposition was because Notre Dame wasn't allowed to play post-season games by admin. This same admin, of course, made a dramatic 180 the moment the AP said they'd include bowl games in their final poll, which suggests this objection was meritless in the first place.
The word "unworkable" was being tossed as a typical objection, particularly from the head honcho of the Sugar Bowl. From another high-ranking employee of the Sugar Bowl came this thought - the kind that reminds me that while I'm proud to be from the South, I honestly wish we could keep some of our weirder spokespeople buried in a basement with a pet python: if college football "gives up January 1, the NFL will move in and take it over and we'll never get it back." Tonto opened his yapper again with the observation that Super Bowl I was "the most advertised sporting event in history" but four bowls with SEC teams in the game drew bigger crowds and a fifth would if only the stadium was bigger.
I think it's important to admit that:
a) it was actually the Big 10 who first favored and proposed a playoff
b) it was actually the SEC who opposed it
What's amazing is that it won't take long and the two teams will...shall we say.....switch sides and make the same dumb arguments in reverse.