Filling Football Absence, John Urschel Thrilled by CFP Committee Selection

John Urschel can’t help himself.

Announced this week as one of three new appointees to the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, the former Nittany Lion offensive lineman, three-year NFL vet, and current Ph.D. candidate at MIT contextualizes the honor mathematically.

Now one of 13 “high-integrity football experts” set to determine the next three years of CFP participants, Urschel was admittedly taken aback by the request.

“Completely surprised,” Urschel said by phone Wednesday. “If you made me list a number of low-probability events, this one would probably be pretty low on the list.”

Not that he’s complaining.

Since his retirement from the Baltimore Ravens ahead of the 2017 season, Urschel admittedly has felt the absence of college football in his life. Now in his fourth year at MIT, set to graduate with his Ph.D. in mathematics next year to ultimately become a professor and make “contributions to the mathematics community over many decades,” Urschel’s only connections to the game have been through his friends. Former teammate Ty Howle is an assistant head coach at Western Illinois, earning a visit from Urschel every year and weekly conversation about the game. But holding out the hopes of having a more tangible relationship to the game, an October email from CFP executive director Bill Hancock, at the recommendation of the Big Ten with the connection facilitated by Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour, started the process toward scratching that itch.

“At first I had to re-read it. And I thought, wow, okay. Yes, of course, I'd be very happy to do this,” Urschel said. “I mean, the College Football Playoff committee, this is a very small group, it's made up of ADs and former players. And the number of players on the committee is not that many, so to be chosen as a former player that they thought was a good representative of a player opinion and a good representative for college football players, that's something that means a lot to me.”

A follow-up phone call cemented Urschel’s acceptance.

“(Hancock) asked me if I would like to serve on the committee and I told him that I'm beyond honored. Of course I'm serving on the committee,” Urschel said. “It's just a huge honor. It's a lot of responsibility and it's something that I will take a great deal of pride in because, college football, it means a lot to me.

“My time at Penn State, these are some of my best years and this is the place where I came to love mathematics. This is where I met all my best friends in the world. This is a place where I developed into a football player. And college football is something really special to me and is always going to hold a very special place in my heart. I'm just really excited for the opportunity to stay connected with college football and to try to give back.”

Already tasked with plenty of responsibilities in his life and with his academic pursuits, Urschel said the decision to add this “extremely important” one wasn’t something he needed to give much consideration.

Aided by technology that provides each committee member with video of every game, every week, “completely scaled down so that there are no commercials, no huddles, and we just see nothing but football,” the responsibility of keeping tabs on the nation’s best programs is one he views as an opportunity as opposed to a burden.

“It's nice because now I actually have a legitimate excuse to watch an unreasonable amount of college football in the fall,” Urschel said. “This is something that I've been doing just because I like it, but now I know that I've been doing it all this time to prepare myself for this job. Little did I know.”

Still fresh to the position, questions regarding specific details of Urschel’s role - as in, whether or not he’d need to recuse himself for conversations regarding Penn State’s CFP inclusion - were directed to Hancock.

Filled with enthusiasm and anticipation to get started in his new role with the committee, Urschel described how he hopes to be a beneficial contributor to the process.

“It's far too early to tell, but what I anticipate is, as a former player, I think I'll bring experience and expertise of a player's perspective on different teams,” Urschel said. “I feel like I have a fairly strong knowledge of football in general. I think I bring a lot of technical expertise, the ability to watch a large number of football games and truly understand what's going on, and have a good recognition of what a team's strengths are and what a team's weaknesses might be.”

And of his renowned mathematical mind?

“I think I obviously have strong quantitative skills, but I don't know. I'm not sure how useful that will be,” Urschel said, “but I know for certain that my football expertise will be useful.”

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