College Football Playoffs To Begin in 2014
By Kyle Kensing
Commissioners from the 11 Bowl Subdivision conferences and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick have come to terms on a four-team college football playoff, to begin in 2014, reports ESPN.com’s Adam Rittenberg.
The parties convened in Chicago over the past week, ironing out details for a restructured postseason. The present Bowl Championship Series contract expires in 2014, the first year of the new, proposed format. This proposal will be presented to the presidential oversight committee next week, Rittenberg writes.
Public outcry for some, any overhaul to college football’s postseason has existed since the BCS was first instituted in 1998. Volume reached a new pitch this past season, when the BCS title game featured a rematch and competitors from the same conference for the first time in the system’s existence. Record low TV ratings for the championship game could not have hurt the push for a reformatted postseason.
Said reformatting should placate both traditionalists and those invested in crowning a champion. The playoff will work within the bowl system, including using two of the four venues currently used for the BCS as semifinal locations: the Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.); Orange Bowl (Miami); Sugar Bowl (New Orleans); and Fiesta Bowl (Glendale, Ariz.). Rittenberg reports the championship site will go to a highest bidder. Call it a hunch, but this blogger’s thinking now might be a good time to plan hotel accommodations in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for January 2015.
Wednesday’s decision comes on the heels of reports that the Big Ten/Pac-12 and SEC/Big 12 were embroiled in a tag team feud unrivaled since the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express vs. Midnight Express.
Among issues debated was whether to include teams that did not win conference titles among the participants. Details of how the four entrants are to be selected are not as of yet confirmed. (UPDATED 8:01 p.m. ET: Per CBS Sports’ Brett McMurphy, unnamed sources say the proposal includes a selection committee to determine the field).