NCAA Presidents Approve Four-Team College Football Playoff

The BCS Presidential Oversight Committee announced the new era in college football Tuesday night. (Alex Brandon)

June 26, 2012. A day that will be remembered for years to come in the annals of college football. For years and years, college football fans, experts, coaches, and players have cried out against the flaws and tyranny of the BCS. Many believed the answer to many of these problems would be a four-team playoff system. The BCS decided to explore that possibility this summer.

The first stage was for the 11 NCAA conference commissioners to meet and draw up a plan. They agreed upon a four-team playoff. The next stage was for Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick to pitch their proposed idea to the board of 12 college presidents who make up the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee. Less than three hours later, they agreed upon a radical change for college football.

The four-team playoff will begin in 2014 and continue through the 2025 season. The four teams will be chosen by a selection committee. The determining criteria that will be used will be win-loss record, strength of schedule, head-to-head results, and whether a team is a conference champion. The semifinal games will be rotated between six different bowl game sites. The semifinals will either be played on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. The national championship game will rotate among neutral sites. The title game will be played on "Championship Monday," the first Monday in January that is at least six days following the final semifinal game.

I fully support the direction in which college football is headed with this four-team playoff. The BCS had many blatant flaws. Is a four-team playoff going to solve everything? Of course not. There's always going to be someone complaining that they got left out. What this does do is leave the valuable traditions of college football in place. You still have the great regular season rivalries. There's still the bowl games to enjoy. But now there is a better way in place to determine who will be the national champion. This is what we all have been waiting for. I am excited to see how it turns out in reality, beginning in 2014.