Football | 9/21/2016 12:23:00 PM

STATESBORO - Each fall, the College Football Playoff hosts several mock exercises with various constituent groups, including 14 to 15 athletic directors from various FBS schools around the country. This year, Georgia Southern AD Tom Kleinlein was selected and spent Tuesday in Dallas participating in the event.  
 
The exercise provides a rare opportunity for participants to walk in the shoes of the selection committee members just as they will during the final meeting of the season. Participants ranked the teams using the 2011 season results after careful review of data and spirited discussion, utilizing the same computers and process of the selection committee, including seven rounds of voting. The meeting took place in the same rooms at the Gaylord Texan hotel that the committee uses.
 
Each attendee portrayed a member of the selection committee. To ensure that everyone not only actively participates, the CFB Playoff implements a couple of "house rules," which are also followed by the actual committee.  Namely (1) no use of live social media, and (2) no use of cell phones for calls, texts, emails, etc.
 
The mock selection concluded with each group assigning the teams they have ranked to the semifinals in the Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl and also to the Cotton Bowl.

After the selection was concluded, GSEagles.com sat down with Kleinlein to ask him how it went and what he learned.

GSEagles.com: What was the most eye-opening part of the whole process?
TK: It was amazing how much conversation and debate went into each round of voting and how detailed the data was used to compare teams. The chairperson has to work extremely hard and then has to face a ton of scrutiny once the selections are completed and released.

GSEagles.com: What misconception of the playoff committee was dispelled after going through this? 
TK: I think the thing that stood out for me was that there is not an agenda from the committee. The process is so well thought out that personal agendas are eliminated from the process.

GSEagles.com: What was your biggest takeaway from the process that you can use at Georgia Southern moving forward, be it in scheduling or how games are perceived?
TK: I took away how important a conference championship game is in the decision process. As a league that debated this issue when deciding whether to have a championship game, it became evident that winning your conference championship game matters significantly after going through this process.