College Football Finally Has "Playoffs"

A four - team playoff series has been approved by a presidential oversight committee today. This change will begin in 2014 and will continue until 2025. The four teams in the playoffs will be chosen by a selection committee. The semi-finals will be held at the current bowl sites and the national championship will be awarded to the highest bidder. The Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick gave the presented the proposal in front of a board of 12 university presidents and in less than three hours later, there was an agreement to have college playoffs!

As the decision was made, the group of presidents endorsed a rotation for the semi-final games among the six bowl sites and the championships games among the neutral sites. The semi-finals will be played on either New Year's Eve or on New Year's Day. The title game will be played the first Monday in January which is referred to as " Championship Monday". There will be three contract bowls. The Champions Bowl, which is a partnership between the Big 12 and SEC. The Rose Bowl, which has a longstanding tradition between the Big Ten and Pac 12, and a bowl to be determined for the ACC. which is more likely to continue its partnership with the Orange Bowl.

According to ACC Commissioner John Swofford, they will have an announcement on their contract bowl and New Year's Day tie-in. The three other bowl which are called the "access bowls" have yet to be determined. This will force the Sugar and Fiesta Bowls to become bidders. The decision made today possibly could squeeze the Big East out of the postseason as its champion is no longer guaranteed a spot in one of the six major bowls. The "automatic qualifiers" label also will disappear in the new system and those programs will have no guaranteed access to the new structure. Bob Bowlsby, the  Big 12 commissioner called it an "open marketplace for all schools."

The Mountain West Conference did not receive a waiver to qualify fot the next two years. Wright Waters, the Football Bowl Association director stated "Today is the beginning of an exciting time in the future of college football and we are committed to continuing the rich tradition of the bowls." The championship game will not be branded as a bowl game and it will be managed by the conferences. The presidents also selected a committee that will rank the teams to play in the playoffs. Two main topics still needs further discussion on how teams will be selected and how revenue will be distributed. The commissioners have agreed in principle as to how the revenue will be divided, according to Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. That has not been made public yet. The commissioners also still need to decide a name for the playoff.The decision is subject to passage of the appropriate legislation by the NCAA Board of Directors to permit the two semifinal winners to play an additional postseason game. Swofford called it a "milestone" for college football.