Exactly how does this happen? Who makes these decisions? If the BCS does go to hell this year and all christendom is crying for a playoff system, who decides whether or not one will be implemented?
University Presidents have already damned the idea. Its a no go, there will never be a playoff. The BCS will be tweaked yet again. UP's have also damned the idea of even a 4 + 1 playoff system, which is the simplest of all. So even if hell freezes over and Elvis and Hoffa run for office in '08, it will never happen.
A true playoff happening wouldn't be the first time college presidents and academia said "Never will we allow this to happen" only to have it shoved down their throats later on down the line. Also, it's not like every single president of the Division 1-A colleges (all 122 of them) are adamantly opposed to a playoff. Many of the presidents of non-BCS schools are vocally in favor of one, and rumors abound that many both inside and outside the current BCS structure, are privately in favor of one if it is "done right." Opinions differ on what would be the "right" kind of playoff though. The most difficult obstacles to overcome to get to a playoff are, in order of importance and toughest resistance, would be: 1) The Rose Bowl, backed by... 2) ..The Big Ten and Pac-10 conferences, their respective presidents and ADs 3) College presidents of other BCS conferences 4) The BCS itself and it's bowls 5) The other BCS conferences I am convinced that a true playoff is inevitable; it is not a question of if, but of when and what format it will take. Why am I so convinced? Because college football is now a BIG BUSINESS, and it is only a matter of time before some bright soul or some greedy pig (perhaps both) realizes how much of a spectacle March Madness NCAA Basketball is and puts two and two together to realize that billions upon billions upon BILLIONS of dollars are there for the taking if such a spectacle can also be duplicated in football. However, it's going to take time, and it's going to be a long, hard road. So adamant is the Pac-10 president's and Rose Bowl's resistance to the idea of a playoff, that, when playoff finally comes, I'm afraid they will not compromise and may need to be excluded from it for a while, and have their bowl and their conference suffer and get left behind until they realize that the old days of the Grandaddy of them all and Big Ten vs. Pac-10 every year are gone and are never coming back. Till that day comes, let's hope the BCS keeps screwing up, that multiple split national championships occur, that multiple undefeated non-BCS schools continue to get left out. Let's hope the damage keeps piling up and up and that no solution or amount of tweaking can fix it. Let's hope that USC suffers a severe downturn and that the Pac-10 weakens to the point that when the inevitable battle comes, they must go along with a playoff simply to avoid complete irrelevance in 1-A football and because they desperately need the money. Let's hope everything that can go wrong will go wrong and no other choice is left for crowning a true national champion.
I have noticed that every other BCS Bowl game bends its traditional matchups sometimes to taylor to the BCS... yet the Rose Bowl always bends and contorts so that it has its Pac v Big 10 match up.
