NCAA Schools May Get a Chance to Vote on a One-Game Football Playoff

A one-game national football championship playoff will “most likely” be on the agenda at next January’s National Collegiate Athletic Assn. convention, it was learned Wednesday.

If approved, a championship game could be staged following the 1988 season.

The recommendation of a special subcommittee that has been studying playoff plans will be announced at a news conference in Kansas City today, following a meeting of the NCAA Special Events Committee. The subcommittee, chaired by Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds, is expected to pass the plan along to the NCAA Council with the recommendation that it be on the agenda at the January convention. The subcommittee would not necessarily recommend that the plan be adopted.

“I’m really not sure what we’re going to recommend at this point; we still haven’t gotten together with the full Special Events Committee,” Dodds said Wednesday during a break in the two-day meeting. “We’ll know for sure by tomorrow when we hold the news conference.”

However, another source said the committee will “most likely ask the council to put the one-game format on the agenda.”

The source, who asked not to be named, added: “It’s going to be put-up-or-shut-up time on this issue. We’ve been talking about this for how many years? It’s time to let people decide one way or the other, or at least find out what they’re thinking.”

The policy-making council would automatically follow the recommendation of the committee, an NCAA official said.

Estimates on the revenue potential for a football playoff run as high as $40 million. And in an anonymous survey of Division I-A coaches and athletic directors this summer, Dodds’ subcommittee found a one-game playoff was favored, 65-53.