condi-rice.jpg

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice smiles on the first tee before playing in the June 5, 2013, Regions Tradition Pro-Am at Shoal Creek in Birmingham, Alabama. (Joe Songer/jsonger@al.com)

Condoleezza Rice? On the first College Football Playoff committee?

Seriously?

No disrespect to the distinguished former Secretary of State, but have the people in charge of this process lost their minds?

Rice is qualified to do a lot more things than most people, perhaps up to and including running the country, but she has no business helping to decide the four teams that'll have a shot at the national title starting in 2014.

It's not personal. It's just that college football is not her business.

It may be one of her passions. It may be a game she's loved since childhood. It may even be a small part of her DNA as a Birmingham native.

But college football has never been how she's made her living. She's never spent day after day, week after week, year after year, with college football foremost on her mind.

You can say she's had more important things to do, which is true in the big picture, but that's the point. If you're going to be a member of that committee, college football should be the most important thing you do.

You should be consumed with watching it, studying it, spending time around the people who play it and coach it. It's not necessary that you played it or coached it yourself to understand it, but having been in the arena doesn't hurt.

The players and coaches who find themselves on the short list of potential playoff teams next season deserve nothing less than the undivided attention of football professionals.

Rice, who teaches political science at Stanford, is a lot of things. A scholar. An intellectual. A class act. She's a shining example of how a young woman from Birmingham, Alabama, can overcome any number of obstacles to become one of the most powerful and respected individuals in the world.

What she's not, and never has been, is a football professional. Every single member of the first College Football Playoff committee, at the very least, should have that distinction on his resume.