Daily briefing: On playing it safe in the Backyard Brawl, renewed rivalries and CFP talks

Ivan Maisel’s “Daily Briefing” for On3:

Second-guessing a punt call

OK, so we thrashed Nebraska coach Scott Frost for making an aggressive play call. Where do you stand on West Virginia coach Neal Brown playing it safe? Midway through the fourth quarter, on the road, leading the Backyard Brawl 31-24, Brown had fourth-and-less-than-1 at Pitt’s 48. The Mountaineers were averaging six yards a carry. Brown revealed a new star in freshman CJ Donaldson, who’s listed as a 6-foot-2, 240-pound tight end but lined up in the backfield and ran for 125 yards and a touchdown (and blocked a punt that set up another touchdown). Brown decided to punt. Coaches, after all, are conservative by nature. Maybe that’s why the college football world went nuts on Frost. So West Virginia punted, Pitt drove 92 yards for the tying touchdown, and two plays later scored the winning touchdown on a pick-six. Seems like asking a 240-yard back to get half a yard would be the way to go.

Emotion fully on view in Backyard Brawl

Watching the embrace by both fan bases of the Backyard Brawl after an 11-year hiatus felt simultaneously reassuring and dispiriting. The emotions of this kind of rivalry are what make college football unique. The Pitt crowd got so loud at times that ESPN play-by-play man Matt Barrie couldn’t make himself heard. This is what realignment has taken away from us. This is the price fans have paid because schools seek financial security. Pitt and West Virginia will play seven more games over the next decade. Oklahoma and Nebraska play later this month. When Texas joins the SEC, let’s assume Greg Sankey is smart enough to have the Longhorns resume annual rivalries with Arkansas and Texas A&M.

From 4 to 12 to 16?

The 11 university CEOs who oversee the College Football Playoff will meet virtually Friday to discuss expansion of the current four-team format. The 12-team format that the conference commissioners (and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick) failed to approve in January may have been the death knell of the Pac-12 as we knew it. It’s understandable how USC and UCLA saw the Pac-12 vote against generating $110 million more in postseason revenue and could decide, “Check, please.” The need for money in the Pac-12 and ACC only has increased. A 12-team format (six highest-ranked conference champs, six highest-ranked at-large) remains alive, and now there is discussion of 16 teams, too. Someday soon, the four-team format will seem quaint.