Status Quo for BCS

HOLLYWOOD, Florida (Ticker) - Despite cries by the many for change, the few in charge of the Bowl Championship Series continue to see nothing wrong. After three days of meetings, BCS officials rejected a plan that called for a four-team playoff to determine the national championship.

The proposed playoff would have started in the 2010 season. The new format would have featured the top four teams in the final BCS standings playing in a tournament to determine the national champion. The top seed would have played No. 4 with No. 2 meeting No. 3.

Instead, the current format will stand until at least after the 2014 season. "After a very thorough, very good discussion among the group, we have decided that because we feel at this time the BCS is in an unprecedented state of health, we feel it's never been healthier during its first decade," Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford said. "We have made a decision to move forward in the next cycle with the current format."

The BCS began in 1998 to create an annual national title game involving the top two teams in the country after the regular season. It has created championship games that would have been impossible under the old bowl system, but there has been no shortage of controversy. Among some of the gaffes of the BCS system was an undefeated Auburn team being passed over at the end of the 2004 season. Two years earlier, Nebraska was crushed in its final regular-season game but still wound up playing for the national title.

Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive presented his plus-one plan on Wednesday but it never gained much support from many other BCS officials. "I'm not unhappy," Slive said. "There's no such thing as standing pat. I think we've done a service. I can't say I'm surprised."