BCS rejects playoff
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – There will be no playoff for the BCS anytime soon.
Bowl Championship Series officials rejected a plan Wednesday to turn the controversial system for deciding a national champ into a four-team playoff, starting in the 2010 season.
“After a very thorough, very good discussion among the group, we have decided that because we feel at this time the BCS is in an unprecedented state of health, we feel it’s never been healthier during its first decade, we have made a decision to move forward in the next cycle with the current format,” Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford said.
Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive presented a plan to the other league commissioners for a plus-one format, matching the No. 1 team in the nation against No. 4 and 2 vs. 3 in the marquee bowl games. The winners would meet about a week later in the BCS national championship game.
“I’m not unhappy,” Slive said. “There’s no such thing as standing pat. I think we’ve done a service.
“I can’t say I’m surprised.”
In the current BCS format, the top two teams in the BCS standings – which use polls and computer ratings to grade teams – after the regular season are matched in the BCS national title game.
The announcement to drop the plus-one talk for the near future was no surprise. Coming into these meetings it seemed to be at best a long shot to gain enough support for it to remain an option for the next BCS TV contract cycle, which begins with the 2011 bowls.
The Big Ten and Pac-10 have been dead set against the plus-one. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen have said repeatedly that they’re concerned the four-team playoff the plus-one creates would inevitably grow. Also, they believe their league’s access to the Rose Bowl, already compromised by simply being involved with the BCS, could be further hindered by a plus-one.
In the 10 seasons since the BCS was put in place, the Rose Bowl has had its traditional Pac-10 vs. Big Ten matchup six times.
Slive, Swofford, Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese and Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe had all said they were in favor of taking a serious look at the plus-one, but no league had gone so far as to publicly support the change. In the end, only the SEC and ACC wanted to continue the discussion.
The concern about a playoff among college football’s leaders is that it would make football a two-semester sport and would lessen the importance of a regular season that has a do-or-die feel to it from week to week.
Also complicating matters for the BCS is the Rose Bowl’s separate TV deal with ABC, which runs through the 2014 bowls.
The BCS’s TV deal for the rights to the Sugar, Orange and Fiesta bowls runs through the 2010 bowls. Negotiations with Fox on the next deal will begin in the fall.
The BCS was implemented in 1998 after the Big Ten, Pac-10 and Rose Bowl agreed to join with the other five major conferences and three marquee bowls to create an annual national title game involving the top two teams in the country after the regular season.
While the BCS has created championship games that never would have happened under the old bowl system, it’s been far from perfect.