College playoff closer to reality

The latest evolutionary step in college football’s postseason finally
includes the word “playoff.”

It’s the yet-to-be-resolved details that wrap around a new Final Four
concept that will determine just how much of a departure from the
current incarnation will be in put into play when the new Bowl
Championship Series cycle resets in 2014.

It’s those same details that could coax Notre Dame to reconsider its
football independence, although that doesn’t appear to be likely
following three days of meetings of the 11 football conference
commissioners and Irish athletic director Jack Swarbrick in Hollywood,
Fla.

“I’ve sort of approached this throughout,” Swarbrick told the South
Bend Tribune Thursday via cell phone, “that if we stay focused on the
broader issues of protecting the regular season and coming up with
playoff format concepts that make sense, the Notre Dame issues will
resolve themselves and Notre Dame will be fine. And I still think
that’s the case.

“As we do today, we’ll have to earn our way into our opportunities,
but they’ll be there for us.”

One of the dangling components is whether the four-team playoff will
simply comprise the four best teams, an approach championed by
Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive, or be limited to only
conference champions, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott’s favorite
version.

The latter would seem to exclude Notre Dame and the other independents
as well as teams like 2011 national champion Alabama, which didn’t win
its conference — or even its division of the SEC — but was ranked No.
2 after the regular season ended.

The prevailing read from the outside looking in is that ND will be
included, which theoretically keeps the school’s independent option
very much alive. It’s Swarbrick’s take as well.

“I think even versions that contemplate conference champions recognize
the need for exceptions,” he said.

What we do know is the playoff will be limited to four teams and no
longer does any conference have automatic-qualifier status.

“Having carefully reviewed calendars and schedules, we believe that
either an eight-team or a 16-team playoff would diminish the regular
season and harm the bowls,” read a joint statement of the 11
commissioners and Swarbrick.

“We will continue to meet and review the exact structure for what a
new postseason could look like. We are making substantial progress. We
will present to our conferences a very small number of four-team
options, each of which could be carried out in a number of ways.”

The biggest options to resolve by the time the commissioners and
Swarbrick reconvene in June, beyond whether to limit the teams to
conference champs, are:

Figuring out how to pick the teams. Using the current BCS formula
or having a selection committee, a la the NCAA men’s basketball
tourney, are two alternatives.

Figuring out when to play. The prevailing sentiment is to get the
title game played as close to Jan. 1 as possible, so they could mean
semifinals around Christmas.

Figuring out where to play the games and whether existing bowls
will be part of the Final Four or not.

Swarbrick also has to figure out a contingency plan for the Irish in
years where ND doesn’t qualify for the playoff. In the current BCS
four-year cycle, Notre Dame can play in the Champ Sports Bowl only
once during that cycle, and the Irish used that chip this past season.

In 2012 and 2013 if the Irish fall short of the BCS plateau, the team
will have to Dumpster dive for a bowl option.

“That’s a little bit unknown for everybody,” Swarbrick said of what
the next wave of Plan Bs will look like. “If you have some version of
a four-team playoff, what lies underneath it? And that all has to be
resolved in the months ahead.”

The NCAA presidents must ultimately sign off on whatever the
commissioners and Swarbrick come up with, and BCS executive director
Bill Hancock said he hopes to have that final step completed by July.

“When you’re inside it, you realize the extraordinary complexity of
it,” Swarbrick said of the work ahead. “I think fans tend to think of
it in pretty stark terms — of playoff or not a playoff, and four teams
or eight teams.

“But there are just so many elements to anything you address: When you
play the games. Where you play the games. Who qualifies to play in the
games? What’s the revenue distribution for the games?

“There are easily 30 variables with every concept. So if you’re
evaluating four concepts with 30 variables each, you’ve got a lot
going on.”