“Plus-one” plan for BCS now six feet under

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – The “plus-one” playoff proposal is dead. Gee, what a shock.

The decision by Bowl Championship Series commissioners on Wednesday likely put an end to any playoff possibility in college football until 2014.

This was as predictable as Duke losing a football game.

The Pac-10 and Big Ten conferences have long opposed the format, proposed and presented by Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive.

The Pac-10 and Big Ten were not going to budge, and unanimous consent was required by the commissioners to make any change.

It turns out the Pac-10 and Big Ten weren’t alone. Two other conferences, the Big 12 and Big East, and Notre Dame were not ready to move forward.

“Looked like a playoff, smelled like a playoff,” Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said.

Give the commissioners credit for ending the plus-one idea now and not dragging the discussion into the summer with the same ultimate conclusion.

Plus-one was a modified playoff, pitting the top four teams in the BCS standings in a mine-tournament. But the detractors thought it would lead to more.

“There was a strong sense in the room of the slippery slop view,” Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said, “that there had never been a collegiate or professional playoff that stopped at four teams.”

Slive put the proposal on the table on behalf of the SEC, still stinging over undefeated Auburn in 2004 being left out of the title-game mix.

“I can’t say I was totally surprised,” Slive said of the decision.

The best hope for playoff proponents – and it’s a longshot – is that this week was the start of discussions, not the end.

The soonest any playoff can be implemented now, it seems, is 2014.

If Fox renegotiates a four-year extension, starting with the 2010 season, the deal will link with ABC’s separate deal with the Rose Bowl.

That gives the BCS four years to build consensus entering contract negotiations in 2011.

The Pac-10 and Big Ten, by then, might have softened their staunch anti-playoff stances. Maybe a new plan will come along that everyone likes.

But don’t count on it.

“You never say never,” Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen said. “But I can’t conceive of what could be proposed that hasn’t been proposed.”

The BCS isn’t ready to change yet, mostly because it doesn’t have to.

It takes cataclysm to get these folks moving.

The commissioners concocted a BCS formula in 1998 and changed it just about every year to repair the annual outrage.

When Oregon, in 2002, finished No. 2 in both polls but No. 4 in the BCS standings the commissioners forced the computer operators to remove margin of victory from their equations because the Ducks’ got dinged for too many close victories.

The six BCS power conferences didn’t want to share the wealth with the five conferences without automatic berths to major bowls.

But they had to change when Tulane president Scott Cowen threatened to take the BCS to court to affect change.

The BCS capitulated and guaranteed a BCS bowl bid to any non-BCS conference school that finished in the top six.

Utah took advantage in 2004, finishing No. 6 and then beating Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl.

The BCS relaxed the requirement to a top-12 finish in 2006 and that allowed Boise State, which finished No. 8, to pull off a stunning upset of Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

Last year, Hawaii, at No. 10, earned a bid to the Sugar Bowl, although that didn’t turn out so well against Georgia.

The public’s outrage of the BCS does not necessarily mirror the inside reflection.

“I don’t think there’s any doom or gloom, either about the regular season or the post-season,” Delany said.

The BCS on Wednesday bought more time on the playoff issue.

There was genuine outrage in 2006 when Florida jumped Michigan in the final BCS standings to earn a spot in the national title game. Yet, that was tempered when Florida thrashed Ohio State in the title game and USC resoundingly thrashed Michigan in the Rose.

Last year, two-loss Louisiana State jumped from No. 7 to No. 2 in the BCS standings and won the national championship with a win over Ohio State.

Other two-loss teams thought they were deserving of LSU’s spot, including Georgia and USC, but every school that had a gripe could have been in the title game by taking care of its own business. Georgia didn’t win its own division of the SEC, while USC lost at home to Stanford.

For proponents of a playoff, 2014 seems like a long time.

And it might not even happen then.

chris.dufresne@latimes.com