ESPN College Football

Our theme today, as part of our "Love to hate" week at ESPN.com, is "Left in the lurch." This is about coaches who bailed out on a Pac-12 program at an unexpected or awkward time. We're not including Urban Meyer leaving Utah for Florida or Jim Harbaugh leaving Stanford for the San Francisco 49ers because their departures were not unexpected and came only after unprecedented success.

Of course, these situations vary greatly in terms of circumstances and reaction. There aren't many college football jobs out there considered better than one in the Pac-12, so most of the coaches who bailed out on their programs left for the NFL.

But here is a sampling from the Pac-12. Feel free to provide your own thoughts below.

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  AP Photo/Don RyanPete Carroll stunned USC fans when he left after the 2009 season to coach the Seattle Seahawks.
  California got dogged twice. First, after going 10-2 in 1991, Bruce Snyder bailed on the Golden Bears for Arizona State. It's rare for a coach to jump from one conference program to another, and it certainly hurts more. Then, in 1996, Steve Mariucci lasted just one year in Berkeley before jumping aboard with the San Francisco 49ers.
• Dennis Erickson twice left Pac-12 teams for sunnier pastures (at least in theory). After two years at Washington State, Erickson bolted for Miami after the 1988 season. Then, after a strong run at Oregon State from 1999-2002, Erickson left Corvallis for the San Francisco 49ers. He has repeatedly said that was the worst move of his career.
• Dick Vermeil lasted two seasons at UCLA. After going 9-2-1 in 1975 and upsetting No. 1 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, he left for the Philadelphia Eagles.
• Rick Neuheisel shocked many when he left Colorado for Washington before the 1999 season for a million-dollar contract, which was at the time considered exorbitant. He left behind NCAA sanctions for the Buffaloes and immediately got into trouble with the Huskies. It didn't make folks in Boulder feel any better when the Huskies and Neuheisel swept a home-and-home series over the next two years.

But two departures really stand out.

Don James is on the short list of greatest college football coaches of all time. In 18 seasons at Washington, from 1975 to 1992, he won a national title and four Rose Bowls. He went 153-57-2 (.726) and set a then-record of 98 conference victories. From 1990-92, the Huskies won 22 consecutive games.

He is the Dawgfather.

And that's why many Huskies fans will tell you the lowest moment in program history is when he resigned in protest of NCAA and Pac-12 sanctions on Aug. 22, 1993. (James really, really didn't like Washington president William Gerberding and athletic director Barbara Hedges, either).

His resignation just before the season forced Washington to promote defensive coordinator Jim Lambright, a good man and a good defensive coordinator but not an ideal fit as head coach. Other than a Rose Bowl victory after the 2000 season under Rick Neuheisel, things have never been the same in Husky Stadium. Not yet, at least.

A more recent shocker: Pete Carroll bolting USC after the 2009 season for the Seattle Seahawks.

Carroll's hiring in 2001 was widely panned, but all he did thereafter was build a college football dynasty, winning national championships in 2003 and 2004 and falling just short of a third consecutive title in 2005 in a thrilling loss to Texas. He went 97-19 (.836) in nine seasons (11-2 versus rivals Notre Dame and UCLA), won six BCS bowl games and finished ranked in the AP top-four seven times. He won 34 consecutive games from 2003-05 and coached three Heisman Trophy winners and 25 first-team All-Americans.

So, yeah, he accomplished a lot. And many thought he would coach USC for life, though many others also suspected the lure of the NFL would prove too much.

It was the timing of his sudden, stunning departure that frustrated many Trojans fans. While Carroll has repeatedly denied oncoming NCAA sanctions had anything to do with his decision to leave, that's a hard line to buy. He skipped town after a 9-4 season that featured blowout losses to Stanford and Oregon and left behind a team with a two-year bowl ban and deficit of 30 scholarships over three seasons.

Still, not unlike how James is viewed by Huskies fans, Carroll is mostly spared the wrath of Trojans fans because of what he accomplished.

There's no question, however, that both programs were left in the lurch.

SEC and Big 12 folks have been tweaking the Big Ten and Pac-12's love of the Rose Bowl of late. That made me grin because the primary motivation for those tweaks was jealousy.

Don't buy that assessment? Well, then what do you make of this: The SEC and Big 12 champions, starting in 2014 after the current BCS contract expires and we presumably adopt a four-team playoff, will meet annually in a prime time New Year's Day "bowl" game.

Unless, of course, the SEC and/or Big 12 champions are selected for the four-team playoff, which one is almost certain to be and both are likely to be.

But, if one or both is selected for the playoff, then, just like the Rose Bowl, a No. 2 team from both or either conference will be selected.

So the SEC and Big 12 have adopted the Rose Bowl model in its entirety. Other than the fact that they can't play in the Rose Bowl stadium as the sun goes down over the San Gabriel Mountains.

The location has not been set. The Sugar Bowl (SEC) and Fiesta Bowl (Big 12) already have a dog in this fight, but expect bids to come from Jerry Jones and his deluxe Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, as well as a play from Atlanta.

By the way, the Rose Bowl jealousy stuff is mostly good-natured ribbing while I'm gaping at another sudden shift in college football's tectonic plates.

Folks, this stuff is amazing, and there's a stunning plot twist seemingly on a weekly basis -- Florida State to the Big 12? Notre Dame back in play?

The main take-away: This is a step closer to four power conferences, with the ACC and Big East finding their footing suddenly precarious.

And, if you want to worry, Pac-12 fans, it looks like the SEC and Big 12 are being far more aggressive -- read: expansionist -- as college football remakes itself. Keep in mind that the Pac-12 could have ended the Big 12 last September and become the first 16-team super-conference if Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech had made a jump.

Pac-12 presidents might end up regretting their decision not to expand -- and giving Oklahoma, in particular, the shaft. Newly enriched by a mega-TV deal, they might have lost track of the big picture while they were counting their money.

Commissioner Larry Scott has long held that further consolidation at the top of college football was inevitable. This is another example of him proving right, though this time without a blockbuster deal for Pac-12 folks to celebrate.

This latest news is a reason to get nervous. Or to just marvel at how quickly the game has changed.

At the Pac-12 meetings last week in Phoenix, it became clear that conference coaches and athletic directors as well as commissioner Larry Scott favor a potential four-team college football playoff including a requirement that each of the four participants wins its respective conference championship.

The reasoning for that is logical and unassailable: A national title contender should first prove it's the best team in its conference. College football folks -- coaches, administrators, etc. -- frequently talk about preserving the value of the regular season. Not requiring a playoff team to win its conference directly contravenes that.

On the other side of the playoff debate are the folks who don't want any such requirements. They say introducing one muddies things up. They say it's important to pick the "four best teams." Keep it simple and credible!

Four best teams? Er, how will we determine that? The ole BCS rankings? A selection committee?

Not acceptable.

There needs to be give and take here. If the Pac-12 and Big Ten are going to sacrifice their automatic tie-in to the Rose Bowl, that means they need to get something in return. Thankfully, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany already has proposed an equitable plan that allows for both sides of this debate to get most of what they want.

It's the top-six plan: Conference champions would be required to be ranked in the top six of the final rankings in order to earn automatic berths in the four-team playoff. If four conference champions aren't ranked in the top six, then the highest ranked at-large teams would fill however many voids there are.

CBS Sports' Brett McMurphy went through all the scenarios. He found that, since 2004, only seven top-four teams in the final BCS standings would have missed the playoffs with this top-six plan.

Writes McMurphy:

Under this format, in the past eight years, 30 of the 32 teams in the playoff would have been conference champions. Only two teams -- No. 2 Alabama (in 2011) and No. 4 Ohio State (in 2005) -- that weren't a conference champion would have qualified for the national semifinals.

Using the conference affiliation for the schools for each season and not their future affiliation, the SEC would have had the most schools in the playoffs from 2004-11 with eight, including seven conference champions. The Pac-12 and Big 12 would have been next, each with six schools, followed by the Big Ten with five (four conference champions, one at-large), the Mountain West with four, the Big East with two and the ACC with one.

Of the Mountain West's four representatives, two were by Utah, now in the Pac-12, and two by TCU, which joins the Big 12 this fall.

That sounds about right.

The teams left out? Stanford and Texas, both twice, and Alabama, Michigan and LSU.

That sounds about right.

The best scenario to look at is 2008. From McMurphy's breakdown:

Top 6 ranked teams: No. 1 Oklahoma (Big 12 champ), No. 2 Florida (SEC champ), No. 3 Texas (at-large), No. 4 Alabama (at-large), No. 5 USC (Pac-10 champ), No. 6 Utah (Mountain West champ).

Conference champs in four-team playoff: No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 2 Florida, No. 5 USC, No. 6 Utah.

Non-conference champs in four-team playoff: None.

Top-6 teams left out: No. 3 Texas, No. 4 Alabama.

Revisionist history: The good news is that the top four conference champions are all ranked among the nation's top six teams. The bad news is No. 3 Texas and No. 4 Alabama, both of which didn't win their conference, would not be included in the playoff. Lower ranked, but conference champion, USC (No. 5) and Utah (No. 6) would have made the field.

In 2008, the top-six model would have created a far superior postseason. The most likely scenario would have seen USC, clearly the best team in 2008, beating Utah, which physically manhandled Alabama 31-17 in the Sugar Bowl, for the national title.

Wait ... did I just pull one of those "Just because" deals there, making assumptions about how good a team is?

Yes, I did. Most folks outside of the Southeast -- including Vegas bookies -- believed USC was the best team in 2008. It finished the regular season with the same record as Florida and Oklahoma, but its loss on the road against an Oregon State team that won nine games was deemed worse than the Gators' and Sooners' blemishes. That judgment was arbitrary and ran counter to what many folks believed: The Trojans in 2008 would have left a bootprint on the foreheads of either Florida or Oklahoma.

And, of course, when Utah held Alabama to 208 total yards -- 31 yards rushing! -- it's nearly impossible to say the Crimson Tide belonged in the same building. Oh, that's right, an Alabama team playing in its first BCS bowl game since 1999 was SO disappointed that it lost the SEC title game that it decided not to try hard in the Sugar Bowl. Please.

Of course, this analysis is bothering some folks. Good. That's how the "Just because" stuff felt for the Trojans in 2008 and for Oklahoma State last year. The most certain way to ensure the new four-team playoff will foment annual controversy is to make the "Just because" element its foundation. We'll still be debating the subjectivity -- and inherent biases -- of the system for weeks as the season winds down.

See, out here on the West Coast, the top-six plan seems simple. It seems fair. It doesn't muddy anything up. It actually provides clarity: Win your conference.

It first tries to award the highest-rated conference champions for, you know, accomplishing something during the regular season, then it makes sure that we don't end up with a three-loss team in the playoff.

It's the best and most equitable endgame in the four-team playoff scenario. And the Pac-12 and Big Ten should fight for it.

Our topic is new looks to old rivalries. Other ESPN.com writers are looking at Ohio State-Michigan (Urban Meyer vs. Brady Hoke), Oklahoma State flipping the script on Oklahoma and the new feel of Clemson-South Carolina.

So why am I tossing Oregon-Washington into that pool?

Well, there's this conversation that has taken place between trash-talking Ducks and Huskies fans for years.

Ducks in 2004: We beat you 31-6.

Huskies in 2004: But when did you last win a Rose Bowl!

Ducks in 2005: We beat you 45-21.

Huskies in 2005: But when did you last win a Rose Bowl!

Fast-forward.

Ducks in 2012: We've beaten you eight consecutive years by an average margin of 25 points and never by fewer than 17 points.

Huskies in 2012: But when did you last win a Rose Bowl!

Ducks in 2012: Ha!

Huskies in 2012: Drat.

When Oregon outlasted Wisconsin 45-38 in January, it won its first Rose Bowl in 95 years. We know this because immediately after the game, coach Chip Kelly -- who often tells reporters he doesn't care about such things -- hollered to the crowd, "It's been 95 years since you could say: Oregon Ducks, Rose Bowl champions!"

I have long been an accidental tourist with this rivalry. I covered Washington's seventh -- and last -- Rose Bowl victory after the 2000 season. I've also covered a bunch of Ducks-Huskies games. I've been accused by each set of fans of being a homer for the other at least once a week since the Pac-12 blog crawled out of the Mother Ship in 2008 and went, "Ooooooo, a mailbag! This is where I'll get compliments from everyone!"

When I first arrived in Seattle in 1999, having no idea these programs hated each other, the Huskies were still the Big Brother in the Northwest. They mostly owned Oregon, Oregon State and Washington State. Now the Ducks are the top, er, Ducks. Not only have they beaten Washington eight consecutive times, they also haven't lost to Washington State since 2006 or Oregon State since 2007.

The Ducks' dominance of Washington -- winning and winning big -- has been mostly stunning. Still, the Huskies had some grounds for rebuttal. The program had been a national power and certainly would be again. And its trophy case contained seven Rose Bowl trophies. Oregon fans could -- fairly -- accuse the Huskies of living in the past, but the Rose Bowl tweak scored a point. And any honest Oregon fan will tell you it smarted.

Or it did smart. It's no longer valid. That page has turned, thereby redefining the rivalry in a measurable way.

Of course, Huskies fans can still hoist a national title into the air. Oregon still doesn't have one of those.

Yet.

PHOENIX -- Pac-12 coaches and athletic directors generally expressed optimism over the expected move toward a four-team college football playoff in 2014, but there was plenty of caution as well as a smack of defiance during the conference's spring meetings at the posh Arizona Biltmore Hotel.

Some, such as Utah coach Kyle Whittingham and Washington State coach Mike Leach, don't think four teams is enough. Some worried about losing the bowl games, particularly the Pac-12's longstanding and storied connection to the Rose Bowl. And just about everyone was concerned about the selection process.

That defiance? It's rooted in the general belief that some other conferences excel at masterful scheduling (read: avoiding challenging competition) and massaging public perception (read: creating a consensus of superiority based significantly on subjective judgments).

If the Pac-12 and Big 12 play nine conference games, and the ACC, SEC and Big Ten play eight, then those conferences are playing by different standards that have myriad measurable effects. If one conference features a majority of teams playing at least one or two tough nonconference foes a year and another features a majority of teams playing four directional schools, then those conferences are playing by different standards that have myriad measurable effects.

Even if one of those conferences has won six consecutive national titles.

"You need some competitive equity within all of the conferences if you are going to do this thing," USC athletic director Pat Haden said. "But if you're going to have a conference, it seems to me you should be playing your conference opponents rather than non-conference opponents. In USC and Stanford's case we really have 10 conference games if you include Notre Dame, because we both have a long history of playing Notre Dame."

While the sentiment is strong among the coaches to reduce the Pac-12 conference schedule to eight games, sentiments mostly lean the other way among the athletic directors. The topic was discussed this week, but commissioner Larry Scott confirmed that there is no short-term plan to reduce the conference slate to eight games.

A big reason for that: There's a wait-and-see attitude on the details of the four-team playoff. While, based on media reports, there seems to be considerable momentum behind incorporating the bowls into the new system, there is little consensus on the selection process for the four participating teams.

That is where the coaches have a dog in this fight. They don't really care where they play, but they do want to know how they get there.

"I'd hate to go to just one little group or one committee that picks the teams," Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez said. "I think it's way too important. The more people you have involved, probably the better."

Oregon coach Chip Kelly pointed out that if there was a final four in place last fall, then Stanford would have been in and his Ducks would have been out, despite their decisive win in Palo Alto. The biggest reason for that? Oregon lost to LSU in the season-opener, giving it one more defeat than Stanford. If the Ducks had played San Jose State, they almost certainly would have finished fourth.

"There seems like there are a lot of questions that still need to be answered before anybody can say, 'Hey, that's a great idea,'" Kelly said.

Therein lies the caution. And the defiance. There was a clear undercurrent with Scott, the coaches and athletic directors that they didn't want to be pushed into anything, particularly when the Pac-12 (and Big Ten) are being asked to sacrifice something -- their tie to the Rose Bowl -- while other conferences aren't. There's a widespread perception that the BCS standings favored an SEC way of doing things, and played a role in that conference's recent dominance. So how does it help the Pac-12 if the new format still relies on a BCS-like evaluation?

There's a concern that if, say, Oregon and Alabama both finish 11-1 that the Crimson Tide would benefit from a "just because" edge, one based entirely on a subjective judgment of SEC superiority. Such a judgment could give the SEC a near-annual second team in a final four while knocking the Pac-12 -- and other major conferences -- out entirely.

"I think a lot of people are going to want the human element out of it, because it would be hard for humans to make those decisions and not be biased in some way," USC coach Lane Kiffin said.

Which is why some, such as Whittingham, favor an expanded playoff.

"From my perspective, you can take it out of the hands of voting and more to on-field performance," he said.

Said Leach, "I'd like to see it more than four. My suspicion is eventually there will be. Because, five years ago, if somebody had said this was going to happen, the room would have started laughing."

Meetings here were long, and there were plenty of other topics, from officiating, to bowls, to scheduling. But the back-and-forth on the potential new playoff scenarios was the centerpiece of the week, at least in terms of intrigue.

Change is coming. That's almost certain. But the process this summer of putting together a concrete plan among entities with competing agendas figures to be contentious.

Said Washington coach Steve Sarkisian, "I think there are still a lot of conversations to go."

The sense coming out of last week's BCS meetings is that college football soon will adopt a four-team playoff model with two designated semifinals and a championship game.

But don't count out the so-called "plus-one," where the top two teams are selected after the bowl games and face one another for the national championship about a week later.

The plus-one is still very much alive, University of Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman told ESPN.com on Thursday. Perlman, who serves on the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, said that during informal discussions between Big Ten and Pac-12 presidents and chancellors, the plus-one model has the most support.

"It is clear the presidents will still make the final decision," Perlman told ESPN.com "We've had some informal meetings, the Big Ten presidents and the Pac-12 presidents, and I think we're largely aligned in thinking a plus-one with a different ranking after the bowl games to select No. 1 and 2 would be acceptable. Our second choice would probably be a four-team playoff inside the bowls. Our highest priority is to preserve the status of the Rose Bowl and our connection to it."

He later added: "I don't think we would be very enthusiastic about any of the other options."

That includes a proposal to have semifinal games played on campus, which Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany has supported. The plan seemed to lose steam last week at the BCS meetings in Florida, but SI.com reported Monday that it remains on the table.

"I don't think that's acceptable to us at this point," Perlman said of the campus-sites plan. "There would be some advantages to the Big Ten in doing it that way, but the end result would be that the bowl system and the Rose Bowl would be kind of like the NIT in basketball. If you have a playoff system outside the bowls, it would do serious damage to the bowls. ... I don't think anybody would pay attention to the bowls."

Perlman has long opposed a college football playoff and hasn't changed his position, saying Thursday, "I can't figure out a good reason to have a playoff to start with." But like many, he acknowledges changes will be made, and in his view, the plus-one is the simplest option and the best option. It preserves the bowl system and keeps player welfare in mind.

"We play enough football games," he said.

Some more notes from my conversation with the Nebraska chancellor:

• The selection for a plus-one or a four-team playoff is tricky, and Perlman has no preferred model because, in his view, there isn't one. "If you don't like computers, then you'll think it's wrong," he said. "If you don't like committees, you'll think it's wrong. I think we'll just pick one, the system that seems to have the most fan confidence, and use it. I don't think it's possible to pick the two best teams in the country to play. In football, that just doesn't work."
• Any type of change to the postseason structure increases the burden for fans. "I don't think it's overblown," he said. "That's one of the reasons why I've never been in favor of a playoff to start with. In order to be successful, it would have to become kind of a corporate event, rather than a school event. While we'd probably do well, given the television revenues, I don't know that it's a favorite of the fans of the schools who participate."
• Nebraska fans and some local media members don't seem as enthralled by the Rose Bowl as those in other parts of the Big Ten. But Perlman certainly falls in line with the view shared by Delany and the other Big Ten presidents and chancellors. Here's what he said when asked about the potential of having nationally significant games in or close to the Big Ten footprint at neutral sites: "If the last game was bid out, it would certainly be advantageous for us. But on the other hand, would Nebraska fans, in the first week in January, rather travel to Pasadena or Indianapolis? There clearly is a competitive advantage if you're playing in the Rose Bowl against a Pac-12 team, or if you're playing in the Sugar Bowl against LSU or in the Orange Bowl against Florida. But so what? It’s a bowl game. That's just the lay of the land."
• Although his playoff stance hasn't changed, he thinks elements of the BCS can be improved, such as the elimination of the automatic-qualifying status which has "created incentives for some pretty strange conference realignments that wouldn't have taken place otherwise." Like Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne, Perlman favors a system that creates better matchups in the major bowls and eliminates some of the clunkers we've seen recently. "With some tweaks," Perlman said, "you could create a series of games in five or six bowls that would be compelling, and would possibly end up producing a No. 1 or a No. 2 team."
• Perlman favors a model that reclaims New Year's Day but ends before the start of the winter academic term. He also supports the proposal to give conference champions the most consideration for the title game or the semifinals. "You ought to be able to win your conference to be a national champion," he said.

While many of you disagree with Perlman's view, as do I, he deserves credit for actually speaking up about this topic. Brian Bennett and I reached out to more than half the Big Ten's presidents and chancellors for interviews and were repeatedly turned down.

The Big Ten presidents hold their annual spring meeting June 3 at league headquarters, and the Collegiate Commissioners Association meets June 20 in Chicago.

"At some point, the commissioners will make a recommendation or a series of recommendations to us," Perlman said, "and we will meet and make the [final] decision hopefully before July 1."

In 2014, we will crown a college football national champion in a different way for the first time since 1997. How we might do that -- and how college football divides the substantial spoils -- remains a matter of intense, amorphous speculation.

But BCS executive director Bill Hancock laid down the biggest revelation coming out of the BCS meetings in Hollywood, Fla., on Wednesday: "I can officially say that the status quo is off the table."

So the pure BCS rankings model is dead. Long live... what?


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Chris Williams/Icon SMIPac-12 commissioner Larry Scott has a lot to consider when discussing a new postseason plan.
Deciding to change is one thing. Then you have to come up with a plan, and there are lots of options before -- and lots of agendas among -- the 11 FBS commissioners.

The consensus among reporters with "sources" rates a four-team playoff with semifinals at neutral sites, perhaps even the existing BCS bowls, as the leading plan. The national title game then could be put out for bid. And it would be very valuable.

But even that seemingly simple plan is fraught with issues. Chief among them for the Pac-12 and Big Ten: What about the Rose Bowl?

Beyond that: How do you select the teams? Will the BCS standings be tweaked -- again -- and used? Or what about a selection committee? What about bias issues? Will only conference champions be eligible? After you select the teams, how do you seed them? And then how do you decide who plays where?

And, when all of that heavy lifting is complete, how do you divide the billions? Do the Conferences Formerly Known as the AQ Conferences keep a lion's share of the loot? Or should there be more equity?

Know that the conference commissioners are not all on the same page. CBS Sports' Brett McMurphy does a good job of showing how Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott and SEC commissioner Mike Slive agree on very little. For example:


Scott said if a four-team playoff is chosen, the selection of the four teams needs to be "more credible, a more objective, fair system that balances strength of schedule.

"We don't all play over the same course," Scott said. "We play a different caliber ... some play nine conference games, some eight. Some play stronger out-of-conference competition, some tend to not. They just want to get home games."

Scott didn't say which conference he was referring to, but he didn't have to -- their initials are S-E-C.


What's important for the commissioners not named Slive is to not allow the SEC to dictate terms, particularly to introduce a system that will cultivate a "just because" feeling that the SEC should always will be in the Final Four -- often with two teams.

Wimpy scheduling needs to be addressed, including finding ways to circumvent misleading measures of "strength of schedule." And, yes, Scott is well aware that a significant part of the SEC's rise is PR and fan passion, not just quality play. He knows that would be in play with a selection committee.

Just imagine how contentious and controversial this could be.

Imagine, for one, if Oregon were ranked No. 4 in the AP poll and by the vast majority of other polls -- coaches, Sagarin, computer, etc. -- but was bypassed by a selection committee for a second SEC team. My feeling, and I could be wrong, is that would bother some folks in Eugene. And the Pac-12 offices.

What if Boise State is the only unbeaten team but many think four one-loss teams from major conferences are much better? Or what if there are four unbeaten teams but an 11-1 team played a much tougher schedule? And will a selection committee worry about which teams would generate better ratings -- say Ohio State over Oklahoma State -- and therefore better revenue.

All these potentially contentious scenarios, of course, mean a HUGE political element will exist if there is some sort of committee. Conference offices will be forced to mobilize on talking points supporting their lead team. As a writer covering college football, it seems like potentially great fun but not necessarily like a system fans won't immediately start lambasting.

You know: Like they do the BCS.

Any committee -- or selection process -- will have to explain itself fully and how it made distinctions: "Yes, everyone else ranked Oregon No. 4, but we think Arkansas is better!"

Good luck with that.

When will we have an endgame? Not this week. The goal this week is to come up with two or three legitimate plans. Those will be put before the NCAA Presidential Oversight Committee. A decision should then be announced in early July.

More reading on this;
• Andy Staples breaks things down.
• In some ways, writes Pat Forde, this is a victory -- again -- for the SEC and Slive.
• It would seem the Rose Bowl is on board with change, mostly because there's really no choice. But it is a divisive issue.
• Roadblocks still remain.

Changes are coming to the college football postseason, and it appears that the most likely scenario is to play the semifinals and national championship game at neutral sites, a source familiar with the negotiations told ESPN.com on Tuesday.

This part likely will be interesting to Pac-12 fans:

A proposal to play the semifinal games at the home stadiums of the higher-seeded teams is all but dead, according to the source. The semifinal games will either be hosted by the existing BCS bowl games or opened for bidding. The source said it seemed almost certain that the national championship game will be opened to bidding by the existing BCS bowl sites and other cities such as Atlanta, Dallas and Indianapolis.

The conference commissioners have reached a conclusion that some FBS schools' stadiums aren't large enough to host a national semifinal game and that many college towns don't have enough hotel rooms to accommodate bigger crowds.

"What happens if TCU finishes No. 2 in the country and hosts a semifinal game?" the source said. "TCU finished No. 3 two years ago. Are they really hosting No. 3 Ohio State in a 45,000-seat stadium? Where are people going to stay if Oregon hosts a semifinal game? In Portland? As much as it would be great for the sport to see a game played in Ann Arbor, Mich., Tuscaloosa, Ala., or Lincoln, Neb., some of the logistical issues are just too severe. I think that idea has come home to roost as far as these guys are concerned."

No offense to the source, but Oregon could produce plenty of hotel rooms within an hour's drive, probably more than most AQ conference teams. Just saying.

If the semifinals and finals were to be played in existing BCS bowls, the games could rotate in some fashion. What would that mean for the Rose Bowl? Well, that remains to be seen.

Conference commissioners are still debating about what to do with the Rose Bowl as well, according to the source. Rose Bowl officials have repeatedly said they prefer to keep their traditional matchup between Big Ten and Pac-12 teams; Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott also favor keeping the traditional tie-in intact. But if the Rose Bowl isn't willing to give up its affiliations with those conferences, it might fall out of a potential national semifinals rotation. However, the Rose Bowl would still be eligible to bid for a national championship game.

The elimination of the semifinal games being played at the higher seeds' home stadiums is good news for the BCS bowls, at least other than the Rose Bowl. It presents a scenario where they can still exist in a high-profile way, one that really doesn't dramatically change much for them.

Other, perhaps, than conference affiliation.

Stay tuned.

The Pac-12 blog's official stance on the Rose Bowl: It's awesome. Has been since 1902. If you've ever been to one, you are nodding.

If you are not nodding, you are either ignorant of the Rose Bowl experience or are untroubled by being wrong. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Our position on this is unambiguous. When the BCS power brokers meet in Hollywood, Fla., this week with the intention of transforming the college football postseason, the Rose Bowl must be given special status. Why? If you were to request a list from the sports' cognoscenti on the greatest traditions in college football, most would rate the Rose Bowl No. 1.

Some ACC, Big 12 and SEC fans might be shrugging. Their conferences don't play in the Rose Bowl, other than in a couple of BCS-mandated exceptional cases. Why should they care?

Well, I don't live in Egypt, but I care about the pyramids. We're talking about history, folks, about tradition, about maintaining a connection to the past. If our postseason endgame somehow ends the Rose Bowl, it would be like knocking down the Washington Monument because we feel like we can build a bigger and better pointy thing in our nation's capital.

We know that one of the four options that will be discussed -- as first reported by USA Today -- is the "Four Teams Plus" plan. It would make the Rose Bowl an automatic part of a "playoff" that would determine the national champion.

The four highest-ranked teams at the end of the regular season would meet in semifinals unless the Big Ten or Pac-12 champion, or both, were among the top four. Those leagues' teams still would meet in the Rose, and the next highest-ranked team or teams would slide into the semis. The national championship finalists would be selected after those three games.

This plan has been widely ridiculed, and for good reason. It's ridiculous. It continues to add subjectivity to the process instead of having more decided on the field of play. That's what we are trying to get rid of.

As I've said before, it doesn't seem that complicated to have a four-team playoff set, then let the Rose Bowl choose next, likely the best available teams from the Pac-12 and Big Ten.

Why should the Rose Bowl get priority? Because it's the Rose Bowl.

Should there be flexibility to the Big Ten-Pac-12 matchup? Perhaps. It's already happened without great loss of life (though there has been a bit of wincing, particularly one year in Berkeley). It might be unavoidable. The game itself, however, is the most sacred relic.

The hope here is this won't end up being only a Jim Delany and Larry Scott crusade. The Big Ten and Pac-12 commissioners obviously have the most at stake among all the pooh-bahs in Florida, but there's no reason for SEC don Mike Slive et al to go all Sun Tzu on the Rose Bowl just to score an Art of War point.

It would be great if Slive et al would take the high-grounded position and recognize the Rose Bowl's special status in college football.

There will be a lot of smart folks in Florida. Let's hope they are smart enough not to drive a carelessly placed wingtip into the game they are charged with protecting.

There are two priorities above all others as college football pooh-bahs try to restructure the college football postseason: 1. Create a better system -- read: quasi-playoff -- to select a national champion; 2. Preserve the Rose Bowl.

No. 2 is controversial.

Why? Because the Pac-12 and Big Ten play in the Rose Bowl. The other BCS conferences' champions are connected to great-but-less-great BCS bowls. So guess who wants to preserve the greatest event and asset in college football history? And who doesn't?

One of the four options that will be discussed -- as first reported by USA Today -- during the BCS meetings on April 24-26 in Hollywood, Fla., is the "Four Teams Plus" plan. It makes the Rose Bowl an automatic part of a "playoff" that would determine the national champion.

The four highest-ranked teams at the end of the regular season would meet in semifinals unless the Big Ten or Pac-12 champion, or both, were among the top four. Those leagues' teams still would meet in the Rose, and the next highest-ranked team or teams would slide into the semis. The national championship finalists would be selected after those three games.

This week SEC commissioner Mike Slive volunteered that this plan, "is not one of my favorites." A completely understandable position, too.

The biggest reason for this is simple: The SEC doesn't have a contract with the Rose Bowl. You'd guess the ACC and Big 12 have similar feelings. Meanwhile, folks over in Big Ten and Pac-12 country feel differently.

My incredibly bright, prolific and downright lovable colleagues, Adam Rittenberg in the Big Ten blog and Chris "I can't see you from behind the SEC's six crystal footballs stacked in front of me" Low of the SEC, both opined this week that this "Four Teams Plus" plan is unworkable, agreeing with Slive. You can read Rittenberg here and Low here.

I mostly agree, in large part because the "Four Teams Plus" plan, when you get down to it, is ridiculous. What it does is -- again -- set up a plan where an ultimate judgment on the two teams playing for the national title won't be decided on the field. You would have two so-called semifinal winners and a Rose Bowl winner and then you'd need a subjective system to pick two of the three.

Anyone think that might get controversial?

That said: Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany need to make something clear in Florida: The Rose Bowl must endure. Period. Then we talk playoff. Or we walk.

That might ruffle some custom-tailored pinstripe suits, but it rests on a great truth that everyone in the room needs to acknowledge: The Rose Bowl is special. No other bowl matches it in terms of history or pageantry. It is the greatest tradition in all of college football. End of story. To not admit this truth is to be ignorant or disingenuous.

How this gets done, I'll mostly leave it up to the Big Brains meeting in Florida. To me, it doesn't seem that complicated to have a four-team playoff set, then let the Rose Bowl choose next, likely the best available teams from the Pac-12 and Big Ten.

It seems very likely the college football postseason will be different in 2014. And it's likely the adopted changes will -- again -- be controversial. A perfect system doesn't exist.

But Scott and Delany should not back down on the Rose Bowl. That's what's best for college football.

One of the key questions in the proposed four-team playoff system that could be implemented as soon as 2014 is how the Rose Bowl will remain relevant and important. As the Big Ten and Pac-12 look to preserve that tradition, it could become a major sticking point in the negotiations.

While nothing has been decided, USA Today reports that one of the options BCS commissioners are looking at would continue to send the Big Ten and Pac-12 champions to the Rose Bowl and incorporate that into the playoff. Writes Steve Wieberg:

"In the latter plan, the four highest-ranked teams at the end of the regular season would meet in semifinals unless the Big Ten or Pac-12 champion, or both, were among the top four. Those leagues' teams still would meet in the Rose, and the next highest-ranked team or teams would slide into the semis. The national championship finalists would be selected after those three games."

So instead of a Final Four, you'd have a ... Final Six? A potential of three "semifinal" games? This is much more like the original "plus-one" scenario -- play all the bowls, then pick the two top teams afterward -- than a true four-team playoff.

"The "four team plus" concept could be a means of selling the Pac-12 and long-resistant Big Ten on stepping into the playoff waters," Wieberg writes. "Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, in particular, has expressed concern that a modest, four-team plan would whet appetites and inevitably lead to a larger-scale playoff down the road. At the same time, both leagues are highly protective of the Rose Bowl and their champions' traditional meeting there -- dating to 1947."

As we've written here many times, the Big Ten's desire to protect the Rose Bowl is completely understandable and defensible. There are few better traditions or environments in college sports than New Year's Day in Pasadena.

Yes, the Rose Bowl would undeniably be compromised in some years by a true four-team playoff. Using last year's BCS standings, the Wisconsin-Oregon game would have been unaffected. But there will be years when the Big Ten and Pac-12 champions both qualified for the four-team format, basically creating a battle of second-place teams in the Granddaddy. While that has happened before on at least one side (Illinois in 2008, for example), would fans and teams still view the game as special if it featured runners-up?

You'd like to think the Rose could still maintain a strong place in the sport, and Delany wields a lot of power to make that happen. Still, if we're going to stage a playoff, let's have a playoff. Using the Rose Bowl as an "extra" semifinal or a potential qualifier for the championship game only further muddies the waters of what should be a pretty simple concept.

It's important to note that conference commissioners are undecided on any plan right now, and this is only one option. But it seems like an option created by committees and compromises, and not one that makes things much better.

EUGENE, Ore. -- While Oregon quarterback Darron Thomas' decision to enter the NFL draft a year early shocked many outside the football program, it didn't surprise many of those close to him, including his fellow Ducks quarterbacks. Thomas had brought up the possibility a number of times throughout the year, so backup Bryan Bennett and talented true freshman Marcus Mariota knew he was eyeballing a potential departure.

Though the news was greeted with more than a few gasps, many Ducks fans didn't spice their surprise with disappointment. Some had felt that Bennett -- despite Thomas' record-setting numbers -- was a better quarterback, or at least that he had more upside. They had seen what he'd done in limited action in 2011, coming off the bench in a big win over Arizona State and a start at Colorado.

Inside the program, not only was it not a big surprise, it also wasn't viewed as a perfunctory passing of the torch. There was a mystery man, an X factor, with whom fans and media weren't terribly familiar because Oregon has shut down access to practices: true freshman Marcus Mariota.

Mariota, a 6-foot-4, 200-pounder out of St. Louis High School in Honolulu, had shown enough in one impressive redshirt year to be viewed by his coaches and teammates as a legitimate threat to win the job.

"When DT left, I told Brian, 'You got to work for it. Marcus Mariota is a very good quarterback,'" said center Hroniss Grasu, Bennett's roommate and good friend. "It's going to be a great competition."

What you keep hearing when you ask players and coaches about Bennett and Mariota is that they are notably similar. Both are tall and fairly thin -- Bennett is 6-3, 205 pounds. Both are athletic and comfortable running an option attack. Both are capable passers. Both have low-key personalities.

"We feel real confident as a staff in our quarterback situation," said coach Chip Kelly, whose Ducks begin spring practices Tuesday. "They just haven't played significant amounts. I'm real confident in whoever ends up out of those guys pulling the trigger that we'll have a pretty good one."

There's good reason for that. Since Kelly arrived as the Ducks' offensive coordinator in 2007, Oregon has been good to outstanding at the position. He transformed Dennis Dixon from a guy who threw more interceptions than touchdowns in 2006 to a leading Heisman Trophy candidate before he got hurt. He made Jeremiah Masoli, an unknown summer junior college transfer, into a swashbuckling, dual-threat force. And under his tutelage, Thomas ended up throwing more TD passes than any previous Ducks QB.

Kelly insists he has no preconceptions: "Our program is founded on competition," he said. Of course, many coaches throw the "competition" coaching platitude around. What actually happens on the depth chart demonstrates that most still favor seniority, particularly at QB. Coaches believe in the value of experience and they are more comfortable with players with whom they've built up years of familiarity. To win a job, a younger player must decisively demonstrate superiority.

But Kelly has shown he's not like that, and we need look no further than the last quarterback competition in Eugene between senior Nate Costa and Thomas, then a sophomore.

Costa was the feel-good story after Masoli's ugly departure. He was the one-time spread-option prodigy who'd been done in by bad knees, but heading into 2010 spring practices he was again healthy and ready to lead the Ducks with his moxie and still substantial skills. Thomas was a skinny guy from Houston with an odd throwing motion who lacked Costa's polish.

Just about everyone thought Costa would win the job, perhaps even by the end of spring practices. But a funny thing happened: Thomas was announced as the starter in late August.

Bennett was a true freshman observer of that competition, at least the fall camp portion. And, just as Thomas didn't surprise him when he opted to leave for the NFL, he also didn't surprise Bennett when he won the job.

"At first, I saw Nate as the older, senior, who kind of took control more," Bennett said. "I think it could have gone either way, but I wasn't too surprised. I thought it kind of started to lean towards Darron at the end."

Fair to say Bennett knows he can't expect his limited experience -- 369 yards passing, six touchdowns, no interceptions -- to give him a substantial advantage, at least not as baubles that will impress Kelly and offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich. But that experience could become a foundation or launching point that helps Bennett develop faster, which could provide a competitive advantage. The game should be slower to him than to Mariota. He knows how it feels when the lights are on for real, and how his teammates and coaches react. He knows how to prepare as a starter. And he saw how Thomas won the job over Costa.

"Since Darron left, I have taken it on myself to present myself as a leader of this team," Bennett said. "I would like to be the starting quarterback of this team. In my mind, I'm going to continue to tell myself that I need to get better and worry about the things I can control. It could come down neck-and-neck. It could be decided in spring ball. I really don't know. It's more a competition with myself, because I can control what I do. I can't control what [Mariota] does."

When fellow Ducks talk about Mariota, they talk about how quickly he's picked up the offense. Mariota, in a revealing moment of humility that supports that very point, said it took him "a week" -- a whole week! -- to feel comfortable running the offense in fall camp his freshman year.

"I feel we are going in evenly," Mariota said. "Bryan is a very good player. He's been in this system for a while now. I'm just going to take it day by day. We both are. And whoever wins, we'll be rooting for each other."

Mariota adds: "If Bryan wins the job, I will be behind him 100 percent. This is a team thing."

This "team" thing has changed at Oregon. Three years ago, the Ducks starting QB was only of local, perhaps regional interest. After three consecutive conference titles, it's now a position of national import. The last three Ducks QBs have been in Rose Bowl and national title hunts.

The expectations aren't any lower in 2012, even with Thomas' surprising/not-so-surprising decision.

"I know whoever the quarterback is, he will do a great job," Grasu said. "Hopefully even better than last season. I know last season was a great season, but I think with the team we've got coming back everywhere else, we can be very successful."

EUGENE, Ore. -- John Boyett is still smiling. Everything seems fine. Up to the halfway point in a 15-minute interview, Oregon's free safety has been insightful and pleasant, even when a certain sportswriter started blathering about this or that.

But that smile hints at something else. It's a happy smile, yes, but happy in the way a lion looks just before he takes a huge chomp out of a gazelle.

Me: I just made a list of the top-25 of players in the Pac-12.

Boyett: [Big laugh] I heard.

Me: You were left off.

Boyett: [More laughing] I heard.

Me: [Nervous laugh] Are you competitive with the other guys?

Boyett: Very competitive.

If you've watched Boyett play, that shouldn't be a surprise. A soon-to-be four-year starter for the Ducks, the 5-foot-10, 202-pound senior from Napa, Calif., is child of a football family, and he's obsessed with the game, whether that's about conditioning or watching film or playing with an intensity that easily endures the filtering presentation of a TV camera.

"Football is in my blood," he said.

How competitive is he? Competitive enough to be, yes, just a bit irked not only at that ole top-25 list but also that he ended up second-team All-Pac-12.

"I'm not just going to say I feel like I'm the best safety because it's me. I'm a realist," he said. "But I really do feel I'm the best safety in the country. I probably wouldn't believe that if [secondary coach John Neal and defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti] hadn't told me the same thing."

But Boyett, who's led the Ducks in tackles two of the past three season and finished second in 2010, didn't come to this discussion unarmed. He's completely aware of who his rival is for best safety in the Pac-12: USC's T.J. McDonald. McDonald was first-team All-Pac-12, first-team All-American with The Sporting News, ended up ranked 19th on the top-25 list and is widely considered the best senior safety in college football.

"I know T.J. McDonald's stats," Boyett said. "I know all the safeties I am competing with in the draft. I know all their stuff. But I'm not stupid competitive. I don't get into all the politics. I'm here to help my team win. If we get into another BCS championship game, I don't care if you give me first team or 20th team, I just want to help the team win."

But...

Boyett continues, "But it is crazy when you look at it. I look at my stats compared to everyone else. And I'm not a big stats guy, I just want to win games."

But...

"But of course you've got to look at it every once and a while. I've got 276 tackles, nine picks and like 29 pass breakups. And the other guy's [McDonald] got like [163] tackles, six picks and nine pass breakups. I've got him by [113] tackles, three picks and 20 pass breakups! And they are still getting...

But...

"That's why I don't get caught up in all that stuff."

Not completely, at least.

What Boyett really does get caught up in is winning. Oregon has done that during his career like it never has before with a 34-6 record over the past three seasons. He was recruited to a 2007 team that fell out of the national title hunt when quarterback Dennis Dixon blew out his knee. In 2008, his redshirt season, the Ducks went 10-3 and won the Holiday Bowl. Yet those were the down years. He became a starter in 2009 when T.J. Ward got hurt, and since then the Ducks have won three consecutive Pac-12 titles and played in two Rose Bowls -- winning one -- as well as the national title game after the 2010 season.

Boyett believes the Ducks will again be in the hunt in 2012. And he believes this defense might be the best unit with which he's played.

"We lose three or four guys, but all the guys coming in for them are just as good as them," he said. "[Aliotti] asks me how the defense is doing, and I seriously tell him, 'This defense is going to be the best since I've been here.'"

Boyett is part of an impressive recent legacy of Oregon defensive backs. When he arrived, the Ducks' secondary included Ward, Jairus Byrd, Patrick Chung and Walter Thurmond. The first three were second-round NFL draft picks, while Thurmond went in Round 4.

Those are the guys who first taught him how to play, but they aren't exempt from Boyett's competitive streak either. He's got big plans for this year, and part of that plan is leaving no doubt in the eyes of NFL scouts.

Said Boyett, "Coach Neal says if I have another great year I'm going to get drafted as high if not higher than them."

The Pac-12, long a conference that opposed a college football playoff, is now fully on board with adopting one.

Pac-12 presidents and CEOs, in Los Angeles for the conference basketball tournament this past weekend, "agreed in principle Saturday to try to end college football's Bowl Championship Series, proposing its replacement with a playoff system that would allow only conference winners to play for college football's national title," according to Craig Harris of the Arizona Daily Republic.

"I don't hear anyone saying business as usual is acceptable," Edward Ray, Oregon State University's president, and chairman of the Pac-12 universities' CEO group, told the Republic. "We need change."

While the details are scant -- Will the bowls be part of a playoff? How many teams will be selected for the playoff? Will it just be conference champions? -- it's now clear there's considerable momentum for the major conferences to announce a new playoff format this summer that will replace the BCS bowl games. The BCS contracts expire in 2014.

The only thing that will give most on the West Coast pause: The Rose Bowl. What becomes of the greatest asset in college sports? That, too, is unclear.

However, the Pac-12 chief executives want to protect the iconic Rose Bowl's status as an elite postseason game in which only representatives from the Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences play. In a playoff scenario, it might or might not be one of the playoff games.

The executives also do not want to extend the college football season, even preferring to shorten it so the championship game is closer to New Year's Day. Officials said they do not want to cut into class time for college football players.

So, in other words, it appears major changes are coming to the Pac-12 and all of college football, it's only a matter of what that change will look like when the details are ironed out.

And, yes, don't for a moment think that the foundation of all this is the simple fact a playoff will generate billions in revenue for all involved -- the conferences and their members, as well as their broadcast partners.

Big Ten bloggers Adam Rittenberg and Brian Bennett will occasionally give their takes on a burning question facing the league. We'll both have strong opinions, but not necessarily the same view. We'll let you decide which blogger is right.

Today's Take Two topic is this: What's the future of the Rose Bowl as college football moves toward some type of playoff system?

Take 1: Adam Rittenberg

This is a huge question for the Big Ten, which is open to a playoff in college football and recently put forth a four-team proposal, while at the same time pledging its loyalty to the Rose Bowl. The Big Ten values the Rose Bowl relationship and doesn't want the game to be damaged by some type of playoff system. At the same time, the league is no longer taking an obstructionist position against a system that most college football fans want. If you want the Rose Bowl's take on the playoff push, check it out here. One big question is whether a playoff model would incorporate the major bowls in any way. I think the Rose Bowl, more than any other bowl, has the potential to survive and thrive independent of a playoff. It hasn't had the drop in interest (attendance, TV ratings, etc.) that other major bowls have had. The Rose Bowl remains part of the New Year's Day routine. It's an event.

A playoff would decrease the likelihood of the Big Ten champ and the Pac-12 champ meeting in Pasadena, but it wouldn't eliminate it. The chances of having one champion in the game remain fairly high, as recent history shows. In fact, we might see more Big Ten-Pac-12 matchups in Pasadena with a four-team playoff and a loosening of bowl selection procedures. You wouldn't see TCU or Texas at the Rose Bowl if the Rose could simply select the No. 2 Big Ten or Pac-12 team. An eight-team playoff has a greater chance to hurt the Rose Bowl, if the Rose isn't part of the playoff structure. Although the Rose can survive a few years of having the No. 2 Big Ten team face the No. 2 Pac-12 team, it can't have two 8-4 squads going at it every Jan. 1. So it really depends on the model.

Take 2: Brian Bennett

The model does make a difference, but I have concerns on just how relevant the Rose Bowl will remain in any playoff system. Don't get me wrong -- the experience, the setting and the tradition will always make New Year's Day in Pasadena special, and the Big Ten is correct in making this relationship sacrosanct.

But a four-team playoff in some way or shape sure seems to be coming in the very near future. I'm all for it and think it is the right way to preserve the importance of the regular season while also determining a truer national champion. But there's no denying this will have an effect on the Rose Bowl. If the bowls are made part of the semifinal and final rounds -- and I suspect this could happen given the strength of the bowl lobby -- then the Rose Bowl will either have to settle for non-traditional matchups or sit on the sideline. If home sites are used for the semifinals -- a great idea, by the way -- then the Rose will either end up taking Pac-12 and Big Ten champions who are not in the final four or second-place teams.

And let's face it: that four-team playoff will capture everybody's attention and will overshadow everything else. While reaching the Rose Bowl would remain an unforgettable experience for the teams involved, the rest of America would simply look at it as no better than the fifth-place game. People will still watch, because football is football and there's no better thing to do on New Year's Day. But in the long term, I think the magic of the Rose Bowl would erode with a playoff system. That's still a trade-off I'm willing to make.