Former Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman and Pro Football Hall of Famer Will Shields, who also won the Outland Trophy while at Nebraska, and Virginia Union athletic director Joe Taylor, one of the winningest coaches in HBCU history, headline five new College Football Playoff selection committee members announced Tuesday.
Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart, NC State athletic director Boo Corrigan and Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte, along with Shields and Taylor, will begin their three-year terms this spring on the 13-member committee.
They will replace Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione, former coach Ken Hatfield, former USC All-American Ronnie Lott, Georgia Tech athletic director Todd Stansbury, and Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin, whose terms have expired.
“Mitch, Boo, Chris, Will and Joe will continue the integrity that has been the committee’s hallmark through our seven seasons,” CFP executive director Bill Hancock said in a prepared statement. “Their knowledge, experience and character, along with their love of the sport of college football, will make the transition seamless.”
The CFP management committee, which comprises the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, also extended the term of Iowa athletic director Gary Barta as selection committee chair for a second season. Barta, who has been Iowa AD since 2006, joined the committee in January 2019 and was appointed its chair a year later.
“We are pleased that Gary will return as chair,” Hancock said. “He was a valuable leader as the committee navigated a unique and challenging year. We look forward to him working with the other 12 members in what we hope will be a more traditional season in 2021.”
Shields, a former consensus All-America guard at Nebraska, played for the Cornhuskers from 1989 to ’92 and is one of only 16 players in school history to have had his jersey retired. In 2011, Shields was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
He was a third-round pick of the Chiefs in the 1993 NFL draft, and he never missed a game in 14 seasons, starting 231 consecutive games at right guard and earning a team-record 12 Pro Bowl appearances from 1995 to 2000. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2015.
Taylor, who has worked at Virginia Union since 2013, had a 41-year career in coaching, including 30 as a head coach. During his administrative tenure in Richmond, the school has won 15 divisional, conference and regional championships.
As a head coach, Taylor’s teams won five Black college national championships, 10 conference titles and made 10 playoff appearances. Taylor posted a lifetime win-loss record of 233-96-4, and ranks third in career victories in HBCU history. Taylor was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2019 and the Black College Football Hall of Fame in 2020. He also has served as president of the American Football Coaches Association.
Barnhart, who has been Kentucky’s athletic director since 2002, is the longest-tenured athletic director in the SEC and was named chair of the SEC athletic directors in 2017. He was also a member of the NCAA Division I basketball and baseball committees.
Corrigan, who spent eight years as athletic director at Army, has held the same position at NC State since April 2019. He was named a 2017 Athletic Director of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. While at West Point, Army won 20 Patriot League regular-season or tournament championships and sent 14 teams to the NCAA postseason.
Del Conte was hired as Texas athletic director in December 2017 after making a name for himself during his eight-year tenure as AD at TCU, where he oversaw the school’s entrance into the Big 12 Conference. He was also athletic director at Rice from 2006 to 2009.
