Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott says the proposed SEC-Big 12 Champions Game is a 'game-changer.' (US Presswire)


Remember all the discussion the past several months about college football's upcoming four-team playoff? Remember the commissioners stepping out of a meeting room at the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood, Fla., last month and proclaiming their support and recommendation for a four-team playoff?

Well ... a funny thing happened on the way to college football's four-team playoff. Some of the game's decision makers are now considering a "simplified plus-one," industry sources told CBSSports.com.

"It's still very much alive," a source said.

It's Alive! was a 1974 horror movie (remade in 2008), but it also describes the once thought-to-be-dead plus-one format. I know which one is scarier: the thought of college football's leaders settling for the plus-one format (one game after the bowls are played) instead of a four-team playoff.

On Wednesday, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott told the Wall Street Journal that "it's possible that [a plus-one] could get some traction."

Scott's reasoning is based on the newly announced Champions Bowl between the Big 12 and SEC champions that will begin in 2014.

"I'd say before Friday that idea of a plus-one didn't have much traction, but I think the announcement on Friday's a game-changer," Scott told the Wall Street Journal.

However, Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas and ACC commissioner John Swofford both told CBSSports.com Thursday that they still favor a four-team playoff. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and SEC commissioner Mike Slive were not available for comment.

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One problem with reducing the playoffs from two semifinals and a final to only one game after the bowls is that it would create worldwide uproar. Well, maybe not worldwide, but at least in most of the Northern hemisphere.

College football fans, teased with the four-team playoff carrot at the end of the stick, would be outraged over the plus-one format because that's essentially what is in place now.

"I think it's beneficial to go to the four-team playoff," Neinas said. "The public expects a four-team playoff and also to be able to provide the access possibilities and everything else, we need to look at a four-team format.

"The problem is identifying the four-team format that seems to satisfy everyone. That should still be our goal."

Swofford also said he remains in favor of the four-team model.

"The momentum continues to be in that direction [a four-team playoff]," Swofford said. "The key is being able to build a consensus how to do it. That expectation [of a four-team playoff from the public] is there, but it doesn't mean it will happen.

"All of this is part of a process."

What must be decided in the four-team format is where the semifinals and final would be held -- on-campus sites for the semifinals has essentially been eliminated, leaving the existing bowl sites or neutral sites for the semifinals/final -- and what teams will make up the four-team field. Will it simply be the top four ranked teams, or will the field be limited to the top two or three ranked conference champions along with the highest ranked non-conference champions?

The national title currently is decided by the top two ranked teams meeting in the BCS title game. A plus-one would pit the top two ranked teams after the bowls were played. The bowls would not pair the teams based on rankings but by their ability to sell tickets and draw television viewers.

That is, except for the Rose and Champions bowls.

The Rose would match the Pac-12 and Big Ten champions; the Champions Bowl the SEC and Big 12 champions. With a plus-one format, the Rose Bowl would not have to sacrifice one or two teams to the national semifinals each year.

Instead those two bowls would be perceived by many as the defacto national semifinals.

"That's not what we intended," Neinas said of the Big 12/SEC bowl game. "We need to keep plowing toward a four-team playoff, which everyone had agreed to."

Just last month, the BCS announced it had "taken off the table both an 8-team and a 16-team playoff" and the commissioners were not presenting to the conferences a plus-one model, leaving only the four-team playoff models.

The 11 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick will meet next month in Chicago. Swarbrick and Delany both told CBSSports.com they expect a final decision to be made June 20 on which playoff model will be forwarded to the Presidential Oversight Committee, which must formally approve it.

Let's just hope it still involves four teams.