USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen expected to step down from College Football Playoff committee, per report

New USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen is expected to step down from her spot at the College Football Playoff committee to center of attention on her new function, in accordance to ESPN. The committee expects to invite a thirteenth member in time for the CFP Rankings, which debut on Oct. 31 after Week 9. 

Cohen was once decided on as considered one of 3 new additions to the committee in March whilst she was once the sitting athletic director at Washington. She changed Colorado athletic director Rick George as a Pac-12 consultant. Former Nevada trainer Chris Ault and Miami (Ohio) athletic director David Sayler have been additionally introduced as committee contributors. 

CFP govt director Bill Hancock advised journalists closing week in Dallas that Cohen was once not going to serve a complete three-year time period after her transfer to the soon-to-be Big Ten establishment and would get replaced after one season. Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel is already a sitting Big Ten athletic director at the committee. However, Cohen’s resolution signifies that the CFP group will temporarily have to regroup and discover a new committee member for the 2023 season. 

The different 4 proceeding energy meetings each and every have one athletic director consultant at the committee: Manuel (Big Ten), Kansas State’s Gene Taylor (Big 12), Kentucky’s Mitch Barnhart (SEC) and NC State’s Boo Corrigan (ACC), who additionally serves because the committee’s chair. Other athletic administrators come with Sayler, Navy’s Chet Gladchuk and Virginia Union athletic director Joe Taylor. 

Complicating the choice is the continued standing of the Pac-12. At this level, Oregon State and Washington State are the one faculties that experience now not made formal plans to sign up for any other convention. If a brand new grant of rights isn’t signed by way of July 1, 2024, the Pac-12 legally ceases to exist after greater than 100 years of operation. 

Both Oregon State and Washington State have expressed passion in rebuilding some model of the Pac-12. The expanded College Football Playoff contract — that includes a type with six convention champions and 6 at-large bids — is going throughout the 2025-26 season and will simplest be amended by way of a unanimous vote from the CFP Board of Managers. Notably, Washington State president Kirk Schultz sits at the board. 

If Oregon State and Washington State come to a decision to proceed the Pac-12, the CFP would have to come to a decision whether or not to upload considered one of their athletic administrators — Scott Barnes and Pat Chun, respectively — to the playoff committee as a consultant. Alternatively, the committee may upload a one-year stopgap involving both any other Pac-12 sitting athletic director or an unrelated birthday celebration to push that call till subsequent yr. 

Notably, Hancock will retire from his tasks as govt director after the 2023-24 season. The hope is to have a successor named sooner or later this autumn to apply a part of the CFP procedure. However, it is unclear who will in the end make those choices concerning the make-up of the choice committee.