BCS coordinator and Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive says that the BCS is still pushing to implement a “plus one” format.
Under a “plus one” system, the BCS games would be “seeded” and played to produce a final pairing of the #1 and #2 teams, a system analogous to a four team playoff. The format as seen by many as a compromise between a playoff and the bowl system.
As he has said many times before, Slive said he was open to discussions about the BCS going to a plus-one format, which would match the top two teams in the country after the four major bowls are played.
The “plus one” format was explored in detail over the last few years but was ultimately not approved, due largely to the objections from the Pac 10 and from Big 10 commissioner Jim Delaney. Instead, the BCS elected to add a fifth game to the BCS – the BCS National Championship – that pairs the #1 and #2 teams from the standings prior to the bowls.
Slive says that the conferences should review the “plus-one” again this year.
“I have been open-minded about whether or not we could modify the format into something that’s become known to be the so-called Plus One, and I reiterated that to the football writers last year, and I will reiterate it again on January the seventh, when I have the chance to talk with them,” Slive said.
“If we [the BCS] were interested in doing that and other conferences were interested in doing that, we would have to sit down and see whether anybody else might be, under certain circumstances, depending on how it was configured. And if we all agreed, that would be terrific, if that’s what we wanted,” he said. “And if we don’t all agree, we will just see what happens.”
The last part of that statement simply contains too much for me to even attempt to read between the lines. I don’t **think** Slive is suggesting that the BCS could dissolve and/or continue to move towards the plus one without the Big 10 and Pac 10. I don’t see that happening, simply because the product (the BCS) is too valuable. You start breaking it up into smaller pieces and you lose that value. So, as best I can determine, they are going to try to get along and — if the can’t — everyone will go along to get along.
Given the two options of full-blown playoffs and full-blown bowls/BCS, I favor the bowl system 100% and twice on Fridays. But… you put the Plus One system into effect… well, that’s just the be-all end-all in my book.
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