BCS Commissioners considering a playoff for college football

February 23, 2012|By Pete Byrne (pmbyrne@wsbt.com)

South Bend Tribune/MARCUS MARTER

The 11 college football commissioners who make up the BCS, along with Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, met for the past two days about the direction in which to take the college football post-season.

Among the topics up for discussion are the creation of a four game playoff to determine the national championship, in addition to moving the bowl games closer to the traditional New Year's Day schedule, and not spreading them out a week following.

The commissioners and Swarbrick issued the following statement after their meetings.

"In an effort to grow college football's great popularity and success, we just completed two days of productive meetings in Dallas, Texas."

"We have until the fall of this year to finalize any possible changes to our current structure. That's when contractual obligations require us to begin negotiations with our television carrier for future coverage decisions. We have a self-imposed deadline of sometime this summer to decide what changes we will propose to our governing bodies for football's post-season. It's still early in our process and we will continue to meet with our conferences and review options."

"Whatever we do, we want to protect college football's regular season which is the best and most meaningful in sports. We want to preserve the great bowl tradition while making it better and more attractive. We also have heard the message about playing bowl games closer to or on January 1, the way it used to be."

"As we proceed, we will evaluate the many pros and cons of numerous possible changes. Every idea has exciting up sides, as well as complicated consequences. From the realities of the calendar to the issues presented in terms of venues such as who hosts games, we have tremendous responsibilities and opportunities."

"The bottom line is we will continue to talk about how to make a great sport even better for student-athletes, fans and everyone who loves college football."

In January, Swarbrick told WSBT that meetings held during the national championship between the committee were very open to all options, including a playoff. Swarbrick said that if a playoff comes about, it's important to ensure that it exists without diminishing the importance of the other bowl games.

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