BCS commissioners meet this week

It is halftime in Fox’s contractual compact with college football – two years down and two to go – with important decision-makers meeting in South Florida on Monday to discuss possible end games.

Is this, finally, the first step toward a modified playoff?

Short answer: no.

The “Plus One” model, as promised in January by incoming BCS coordinator John Swofford, will be on the table at the annual Bowl Championship Series commissioners meetings. Yet, the plan seemingly has little chance of succeeding so long as the Pacific 10 and Big Ten conferences remain opposed.

Swofford said on a conference call Friday that any changes to the format would have to be by unanimous consent of the 11 BCS commissioners.

“I don’t think it can be forced on anyone one way or another,” Swofford said of the playoff proposal.

Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen can’t stop the topic from being discussed.

“If they do, fine,” Hansen said. “But there has been no change in the position of the Pac-10 that the current BCS system is the preferred system.”

Fox’s four-year, $320-million deal with the BCS expires after the 2009 season. The Rose Bowl, however, has a separate contract with ABC that extends through the 2014 game.

The Pac-10 argues that contract effectively ends any short-term playoff scenarios.

While most college officials remain opposed to an NFL-style playoff, four of the six major conferences are willing to consider a modified extension to the season.

The most popular Plus One model would involve seeding the top four schools in the final BCS standings, with the winners playing for the national title. Last year, No. 1 Ohio State would have played No. 4 Oklahoma in one “semifinal” with No. 2 Louisiana State facing No. 3 Virginia Tech in the other.

Hansen said you can talk models all you want.

“I have not seen a scenario that would change our mind about changing the current format or satisfy conversations we’ve had about the Plus One,” Hansen said.

Rose Bowl CEO Mitch Dorger also opposes any format change but said he only follows the lead of his partner conferences – the Pac-10 and Big Ten.

“Bowls aren’t the people that are going to decide this issue,” Dorger said. “We didn’t decide the last system and we’re not likely to decide the new system.”

People with various degrees of interest and credibility continue to throw haymakers.

Georgia President Michael Adams last January floated an eight-team playoff proposal that died about a week after the ink dried on newspaper accounts.

Last week, three congressmen called for a Justice Department investigation questioning the legality of the BCS.

It was the same week the Western Athletic Conference, which years ago took the anti-trust argument to Congress that helped initiate a settlement on behalf of the five “non-BCS” conferences, mailed out T-shirts celebrating “Back-to-Back” BCS appearances.

Boise State and Hawaii earned major bowl bids by finishing in the top 12 of the BCS standings.

“I think there is more opportunity in the postseason to reach the highest level, if you qualify, than there ever has been before,” Swofford said.

Hawaii earned $4.4 million for its humiliating Sugar Bowl loss to Georgia. Because the Pac-10 splits its BCS payout evenly to all conference schools, however, USC earned only $1.846 million for its Rose Bowl win over Illinois.

It is imperative, Swofford said, that BCS commissioners know what the next format will be before entering the next round of network negotiations. Fox has an exclusive, 30-day negotiating window that can be triggered between Sept. 1 and Feb. 1. If a deal can’t be made, the BCS will open the bidding to all networks. That’s how, in the last go-round, Fox snatched all but the Rose Bowl away from ABC.

The commissioners will also discuss the future of the “double host” format, which ends its four-year rotation with the Rose Bowl hosting the national title game in 2010.

The Cotton Bowl, which is moving its game into the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in 2010, is eager to get back in the major bowl business after it was left out of the original BCS lineup.

“I think the general feeling from bowls involved, as well as those of us with the BCS, is that we’re very satisfied with how that has gone in the initial two years,” Swofford said of the double host format.