Oklahoma football: Bob Stoops on a four-team playoff

As we wait for word from Washington, D.C., and the historic announcement of a four-team college football playoff, here’s more from Bob Stoops, who clearly supports the proposed model. I wrote about Stoops for my column in the Tuesday Oklahoman, which you can read here. And our man R.J. Young caught up with Stoops and other coaches Monday to get their take.

Stoops likes the four-team model but no more. “It gives people a little bit of what they want,” Stoops said. “Let’s face it, now everyone’s going to complain, who’s (No.) five, who’s six, who’s seven. Who cares? If you’re that far down the list, you don’t matter any way.”

Will Stoops sing the same song if the Sooners are the No. 5 team in 2014 or 2015? If so, a salute is in order.

But no doubt, the four-team model will face pressure to expand, just as the two-team model, which we’ve had for more than a decade, has been under constant attack to grow.

“That’s what the media will try to do,” Stoops told a group of OU fans earlier this month in Plano, Texas. “But eventually you guys will turn ‘em off and say, ‘I don’t care.’”

Well, good luck with that one. I think the public has clamored for a playoff just as much as media has, and I don’t think that will change as the debate shifts to growing from four instead of two. There’s a reason the slippery slope theory is prevalent. Slopes are slippery, and a four-team playoff, whether it’s wildly successful or woefully weak, will come under scrutiny.

If it’s successful, the idea will be that the more the merrier. If it’s a dud, the fix will be to expand.