Eleven conference commissioners and Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick met yesterday and the “most important thing that came out of the meeting was a sea change in the openness toward a potential four-team playoff,” according to Pete Thamel of the N.Y. TIMES. Little progress “toward a decision was made” about changing college football's postseason format, with Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott describing the meetings as “more philosophical than conceptual.” A decision “is expected to come before July 4, with five to seven meetings over the next few months set to determine the sport’s postseason future.” Thamel writes the tenor "has clearly changed." Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said of the meeting, “It was far more open. Everyone here fully participated in it.” Delany had been “one of the commissioners who did not want to even discuss a playoff four years ago, but he described himself as ‘interested, curious and fully participating’” yesterday. Thamel notes the conversation itself “hinted at progress toward a playoff.” The meetings “offered a hint of change, but also a sense that the process will be slow, contentious and carefully scripted” (N.Y. TIMES, 1/11). Scott said that he was “encouraged by his first formal meeting about the future of the BCS.” Scott: “Today was more a philosophical conversation about the extent to which people are open for change. I was very pleased. People are open-minded. But we didn't officially rule out ideas or rank ideas" (AP, 1/10). BCS Exec Dir Bill Hancock said, “We talked about everything. Most of it at 30,000 feet, and that was the intent of the meeting.” He added, “There is a general feeling that to make it the best it can be, that probably some changes need to be made. How seismic, no one knows.” Hancock estimated that “50 to 60 concepts were discussed.” He added, “There’s no leader in the clubhouse” (USA TODAY, 1/11). Hancock said that the commissioners “are unified in preserving the importance of the regular season and conducting an annual title game.” He said the commissioners "want to build something the next generation will be very proud of" (L.A. TIMES, 1/11).
CHANGE IS GAINING TRACTION: In Nashville, David Climer notes the plus-one plan “is gaining traction.” The plus-one idea is an “acceptable compromise between playoff proponents and opponents.” Unlike an eight- or 16-team playoff plan, the plus-one “requires only two teams to play an extra game and does not extend the postseason calendar” (Nashville TENNESSEAN, 1/11). In N.Y., Dick Weiss writes if the BCS commissioners "want to maintain national interest in their postseason, improve TV ratings and increase sagging bowl attendance, they need to seriously consider revamping the system." More specifically, they "need to expand to a plus-one model” (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 1/11). In Phoenix, Dan Bickley writes the history books “won't be as kind as the record books.” We will “remember the entire era as the dark age of college football, when a temporary experiment (the Bowl Championship Series) became a reviled business model and hood ornament for a scandalous time, ultimately bowing to a much-needed playoff system” (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 1/11).
RATINGS WILL PLAY A ROLE: FoxSports.com's Mark Kriegel said the future of the BCS is "like everything else in college sports, it's going to be driven ultimately by the television ratings." He said of changing the format, "I do think it is inevitable. What you have here, what the BCS has done is basically make the bowl games themselves obsolete" ("Jim Rome Is Burning," ESPN2, 1/10). ESPN’s Mike Greenberg said of a potential college football playoff, “More people will watch it on TV than watch now. More people would watch a true playoff game than a bowl game” (“Mike & Mike in the Morning,” ESPN Radio, 1/11).
