Column: Pat Haden’s resignation should be a cautionary tale for CFP

The risk in asking an active athletic director to serve on the College Football Playoff selection committee was that he might be confronted with a real-time crisis that would compromise his ability to serve.

That reality hit home Friday when USC Athletic Director Pat Haden abruptly resigned his position from the committee four days before its first ranking release.

Haden was confronted with so many issues and conflicts the only surprise was that his resignation didn’t come sooner.

MORE: Pat Haden steps down from CFP committee

The first hint this wasn’t going to work came last year when Haden ran down from the press box at Stanford to defend Coach Steve Sarkisian on the sideline during a football game.

There were calls for Haden’s resignation then, but the matter was mostly settled with an apology and a few chuckles.

The incident demonstrated that active athletic directors are loyal, first and foremost, to the universities that pay them. It was in Haden’s DNA, as an employee and former USC player, to defend his school and his coach. Fight On, right?

Executives of the College Football Playoff went out of their way to tell us that the members of its 13-person selection committee were beyond reproach. The group includes former high-ranking military officials and even Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of State.

But it also included Athletic Directors Haden and Barry Alvarez of Wisconsin, who coached the Badgers in a bowl game after serving on the selection committee. He also was captured barking at game officials from the sideline during the regular season.

Haden is now a cautionary tale. He was confronted with the nightmare scenario of having to fire a coach, then conduct a search for a new one, all while making weekly trips to Dallas in November as a member of the committee.

Haden also is battling serious health issues, and he serves on the boards of several companies while also negotiating a multimillion dollar Coliseum renovation deal.

Gumby was never stretched in so many directions.

“I am reluctant to step down,” Haden said Friday in a statement, “but my doctors advised me to reduce my traveling. With the weekly CFP meetings about to start and the travel commitment involved, I had to make this difficult decision.”

Haden’s health is no smokescreen. A school spokesperson said Friday that Haden would not, on doctor’s advice, be making USC’s trip to Berkeley this weekend. He didn’t attend last Saturday’s game against No. 3 Utah at the Coliseum, either.

But make no mistake, this wasn’t just about the travel commitment.

This was about an overworked, embattled athletic director whose credibility on the selection committee had become, at least, a distraction.

It would have been difficult for him, even in good health, to continue on a committee to pick the four best teams while people back home wondered whether he was fit to pick the next USC football coach.

Haden has built up too much good-works equity over a lifetime to be run out of town on a rail by a bunch of knee-jerk pajama bloggers. However, there is no doubt his position on the highly scrutinized selection committee had been compromised.

His resignation was the right thing for all involved and will have minimal impact on the process. The committee will simply have 12 members instead of 13. The same issue arose last year when Archie Manning resigned because of lingering health issues.

The difference: Manning was a mostly retired person whose biggest concern was getting to New York and Denver to see his quarterback sons play professional football.

He was not firing coaches, or looking for new ones, or becoming ill on the sideline at Notre Dame, or battling critics who want him ousted.

“We will miss Pat,” said Bill Hancock, the CFP’s executive director. “He knows and loves college football and brought excellent insight to the process, but we all understand.”

Above all else, Haden needs to care for, in order: his health, his family and his university.

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