Disney’s Playoff Plan Meets Cool Response : NCAA: College presidents indicate they will move slowly in considering proposal for Division I-A football championship game.

The debate has become part of the college football landscape, like Lou Holtz making every Notre Dame opponent out to be an updated version of Lombardi’s Packers or Nebraska losing the big one.

Somebody trots out an idea for a playoff in NCAA Division I-A football.

Somebody else knocks it down.

“(Staging a Division I-A football playoff) is a subject that seems to have renewed life every time it is declared dead,” said Thomas Hearn, Wake Forest president.

The latest proposal for such a playoff comes from Walt Disney Co., which has unveiled plans for a national championship game at Anaheim Stadium--the Disney Pigskin Classic.

The game, proposed to start in January of 1995, would match the top two teams as voted by the CNN/USA Today coaches’ poll after the New Year’s Day bowl games and would serve as the centerpiece of a weeklong festival highlighting all areas of collegiate endeavor, including academics and the arts.

Each school participating in the game would be guaranteed $1 million. All other Division I-A schools would receive at least $75,000 apiece.

The project, co-sponsored by ABC Television and The Times, was described in a report sent to presidents of the 106 Division I-A schools last week as a “novel game plan” for celebrating higher education.

Will it fly?

Don’t plan the tailgate party just yet.

There will be no Disney Pigskin Classic without the approval of the NCAA. The NCAA is currently guided by college presidents. And most college presidents, particularly those deeply involved in NCAA activities, have long opposed a Division I-A football playoff.

“I’ve certainly been aware that something was coming from the Disney people,” said Joseph Crowley, president of the University of Nevada and current president of the NCAA. “But I don’t think the news (of Disney’s interest) has changed anything about the way we are proceeding with (the football playoff issue).

“As always, we are proceeding very slowly.”

Noting Disney’s attempt to promote both athletics and academics, Tom Hansen, commissioner of the Pacific 10 Conference, said: “I think the presidents will find that very attractive. But I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to ask football teams to play more games.”

The notion of a Division I-A football playoff is indeed a hard sell at a time when the NCAA Presidents Commission, the association’s most influential group, is seeking ways to reduce pressures on student-athletes.

“We know there’s a lot of public interest (in a football playoff),” said Gregory O’Brien, University of New Orleans chancellor and current chairman of the Presidents Commission, “but, at the same time, our concern as college presidents has to be on the athletes as students and not wanting to make a fall sport become one that takes two semesters.”

Roger Sayers, University of Alabama president and a member of the commission, said he read Disney’s proposal and found some elements of it, particularly those that would showcase outstanding students, to be “very positive.” Still, he said he does not favor adding a playoff game for the national championship.

“For us, we’re involved in a playoff game (for the Southeastern Conference title) right now,” he said. “We play that game, then a bowl game--that’s 13 games. The proposed game, should we be in it, would be a 14th game. That bothers me.”

In opening the NCAA’s annual convention last January, then-executive director Dick Schultz called on NCAA members to consider a one-game playoff as a means of creating a new stream of income. According to Schultz’s estimate, such a game could generate between $50 and $60 million.

Schultz’s remarks sparked discussion at the convention, but did not lead to substantive consideration of the playoff issue by the presidents.

“That was Dick’s personal view of how we could address the question of (financing) gender equity (matters), among other things,” said Wake Forest’s Hearn, also a Presidents Commission member. “But the real problem is we have an enterprise that we can’t afford to maintain. Football playoff or no football playoff, this enterprise is going to have to be downsized.”

That mind set appeared to guide the Presidents Commission when a group calling itself “Victory”--a joint venture of Nike, Inc., and Creative Artists Agency--presented a Division I-A football playoff proposal featuring an eight-team format at the commission’s annual summer meeting last June.

Said Steve Miller, Nike’s director of sports marketing: “We received an incredible reception from coaches. Athletic directors were very, very receptive. Conference commissioners didn’t show much feeling one way or another. The Presidents Commission was where (the proposal) was received the least well.

“We heard all the same concerns: lost class time, too many games. (The presidents) don’t want to appear too concerned about money. Well, schools are dropping sports. Hey, a playoff is an issue whose time has come--if not this year, next year.”

As for the Disney proposal, it already has found a place on the back burner.

Company officials had hoped to receive consideration as an agenda item at the NCAA convention in January. However, NCAA procedure does not allow for items to be added to the agenda after Aug. 15. Hence, the Disney proposal probably won’t be discussed in any depth until the Presidents Commission meets next summer to consider items for the 1995 convention agenda.

And what then?

“Well,” said Alabama’s Sayers, “I haven’t seen a groundswell of support for the concept.”