As the incoming president of Coastal Carolina University and an alumnus of BYU, Michael T. Benson certainly has had a vested interest in the 2020 college football season, as those schools’ teams have combined to go 22-1, with the only loss being BYU to CCU.
CCU still has one game remaining, the Cure Bowl on Saturday against Liberty, but the fact that the Chanticleers are playing in that bowl as opposed to a more high-profile postseason contest irked Benson enough to the point that, according to a story by Yahoo’s Pete Thamel, he wrote an open letter to the College Football Playoff committee and its chairman Gary Barta to criticize the work they’ve done this season.
According to Thamel, Benson criticized what he said is “the lack of fairness” and “absence of character” in the college football postseason, something a growing number of people have done publicly over the past few weeks, although perhaps not as directly to the committee as Benson.
“I can’t help but think what might have been this season had all (Football Bowl Subdivision) programs been given the same equality of opportunity,” Benson wrote, according to Thamel. “Just think about that: Football is the only sport where the deck is stacked insurmountably against those who have the inevitable classification of “Group of Five” before toe hits the leather each fall.”
Thamel reported that in a separate interaction with Benson earlier this week, Benson told him, “If you expand the playoff to eight teams, they’re talking about a Group of Five representative or maybe two. Just give us a chance to have access like these other schools.”