Big Ten and College Football Playoff: Is the BCS Dead?

College football fans everywhere have been begging for a playoff for as long as I can remember, and when the BCS was introduced in 1998 it just made things worse. After all, how in the world can the national championship be played when a computer is the one picking the two teams to play in the big game?

A computer?

The Big Ten conference is now trying to change this by offering a new way of doing things.

The conference would like to take the top four teams from the BCS pool and have them participate in playoff games. Home field for the semifinal games will go to the two highest seeds, and the championship site will be picked every year, like the Super Bowl. And of course, the winner out of the four teams is declared champion.

Although the new college football cycle doesn't start until 2014, they expect some type of playoff format to be approved sometime this year.

This is great news right? We have finally concurred the BCS and will finally see the true top two teams battle it out in the national championship.

Not so fast. The BCS is still alive and breathing and will need a lot more to completely knock it out.

First, this isn't the first idea thrown out there to try and get rid of the BCS. There have been several ideas thrown out there, but none have really gained much steam. In 2008 the SEC (conference that benefits most from the BCS) proposed a "plus-one" playoff and couldn't get support from the other conferences.

The proposal that the Big Ten has thrown on the table is very interesting, but what makes you think it will get the support needed to pass? Many teams may not like the fact that the top two seeds will have home games. Which means teams in the Pac-12, ACC or Big 12 could possibly have to travel to the Big Ten and play in freezing weather. I can assure you teams like USC or Miami are just fine where they are and probably don't own a single sweater or a pair of long johns.

Another thing to consider is the fact that these teams participating in this playoff will be voted in by somebody. There has to be some type of formula to determine who exactly the top four teams in the country are. That brings us back to that computer or the guys in the suits and ties, which brings us back to the BCS. If the polls and the voting are still going to be there, what difference does it make that there is a playoff?

And why four teams? Do we really think that this is going to fix all of the problems? What about the five and six teams, they only lost one game as well. What makes the fourth team's one loss more respectable that the other teams one loss? The NCAA basketball tournament allows 68 teams and every year we still argue why six other teams didn't make the big dance. You think four teams will really cure college football? Think again.

The bottom line is there is never going to be a perfect solution to determine who exactly the best team of the year is. There are so many different conferences, they all play different competition and there will always be headaches about which teams really deserved a shot to play in the national championship.

There are still several hurdles that need to be jumped over and many things that need to be ironed out before a playoff format is agreed upon. Until those things are done, the BCS is still alive and kicking.



Randy Chambers is a B/R featured columnist that covers college football and the NFL. You can contact him @Randy_Chambers or [e-mail].