The BCS had one of their meetings on Monday to discuss what sort of college football playoff system would be taking place in the 2014 season. There has been discussion of a plus-one played after the traditional bowl games, four-team playoff, conference champions in a four-team playoff, and pretty much any option.
Well that is except anything beyond a four-team model:
Bill Hancock: No discussion of 8 or 16 team playoff. Everything else still on the table, including "pure" plus one (title game after bowls)
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) March 26, 2012
After hours and hours at the meetings the decisions that were being made ended up being more on where and when a playoff would take place than how. The same tired questions keep being presented such as why should we ask fans to travel multiple times to see their team play or the advantage of playing at home even though the lower seed is virtually identical to the higher seed.
Here is the statement that the BCS released from Monday's meetings:
As part of our continuing discussions about how to decide college football's national champion while maintaining the best regular season in sports, we met today in Dallas. The meeting was constructive and highly detailed.
While no decisions have been made about the overall structure, our talks have entered the "brass tacks" level. For every concept that enjoys broad support, there are a host of intricate details that we're talking through.
For example, if we change the current format, would we play some games on campus or all games on neutral sites? If some games are on campus, is that too much of a competitive advantage? If all games are at neutral sites, would fans be able to travel to two games in a row? How would teams be selected? By a committee, by the current ranking formula, or by a different formula? When exactly would games be scheduled, considering finals, holidays and our desire to avoid mid-January games?
As we discuss the upsides and downsides of our decisions, we are united in our desire to protect our great regular season and honor the bowl tradition, while maintaining the collegiate nature of our sport.
We're making good progress toward our self-imposed goal of making a final recommendation this summer to our governing bodies.
Basically nothing has been decided except for a lot more questions, and no one can decide on anything:
"There's no consensus yet on anything," SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said. "The first couple of meetings, we talked a lot about just college football in general, the regular season. This time, less of that and more about how we need to start getting closer to where the rubber meets the road. And there's lots of different options, and start to analyze each one of those and the pros and cons that go with them."
It will be a miracle if something can be decided on this before the Summer ends, which is the goal. There are 12 different agendas between all 11 conferences and then Notre Dame's athletic director, so there is still a long way to go to come to an agreement on a new college football postseason.
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