BCS Ready for a Playoff System
Written by Bob Whalon, Tuesday January 10 2012
A rematch between two teams from the same conference and the second lowest ratings for the BCS title game ever may actually lead to changes in the current system for determining a national champion in college football.
Alabama's 21-0 win in a rematch against SEC rival LSU on Monday on ESPN earned a 14.0 rating, which was down 8 percent from last year. It barely beat the lowest-rated BCS title game ever, the 13.9 rated Miami-Nebraska game in 2002.
Because of the lack of interest, college football leaders are finally open to considering the idea of turning the BCS into a four-team playoff
The commissioners from the 11 FBS conferences met Tuesday at a hotel in New Orleans where the title game was played and discussed alternative methods of determining a national champion.
"Today was more a philosophical conversation about the extent to which people are open for change," Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said. "I was very pleased. People are open-minded. But we didn't officially rule out ideas or rank ideas." No, but the four-team playoff seems like the unofficial front-runner.
The four-team playoff is called a plus-one model that would create two national semifinals and a championship game played a week later to determine the national champion. That idea was first proposed in 2008 by SEC commissioner Mike Slive and ACC commissioner John Swofford. Unfortunately it was opposed by the Big Ten, Pac-10, Big East, Big 12 and Notre Dame.
"Four years ago, five of us didn't want to have this conversation," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said. "Now we all want to have the conversation."
A new BCS format must be in place before the fall when the television contract negotiations begin with ESPN. The BCS is currently in the middle of a four year contract with ESPN that runs through the 2014 season. That means that starting in 2014 there could possibly be a playoff system in place to determine college football's national champion.
"I think people realize there are flaws in the current system and people are ready to think creatively about ways to improve it," Scott said.
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