Last week, at a ritzy beach resort near Charleston, S.C., 18 of the Atlantic Coast Conference's best players filed into a wood-paneled meeting room for a private luncheon with ACC commissioner John Swofford.

They were all there: Georgia Tech quarterback George Godsey, Clemson quarterback Woodrow Dantzler, North Carolina State linebacker Levar Fisher, Virginia running back Antoine Womack, Florida State offensive tackle Brett Williams ... on and on it went.

Swofford, who played quarterback and defensive back at Chapel Hill in the late '60s and '70s, likes to do this sort of thing. He likes to get the players in a cozy, relaxed setting, feed them some grub, assure them no media members are hiding behind the drapes, and then start picking their minds about the state of college football.

As usual, the possibility of a playoff system came up. It won't happen soon -- the Bowl Championship Series and its quirky computer formula is good to go through the 2005 regular season -- but who knows what the TV gods and Division I-A presidents will decide in the future?

So Swofford asked his ACC players what they thought about playing, say, 12 regular season games, then maybe a conference championship game, then, depending on the playoff format, at least two more games after that.

Unlike past years, when Swofford's questions were sometimes met by long, awkward pauses, the players couldn't wait to pop off about a playoff system.

According to Swofford and associate commissioner Tom Mickle, who was also in the hotel's Club Room for the luncheon, the players "unanimously" favored keeping the bowl system rather than adding games for a Final Four-like playoff. Turns out the ACC players didn't want to extend the season any more than necessary.

"Eleven [games] is a lot," said Wake Forest linebacker Marquis Hopkins. "By the eighth game you're feeling it. More games ... that's a lot for a body to take."

So if the ACC stars speak for the majority of Division I-A players, the general gist of things is this: they don't want to play extra games, they like the bowls, and they're not thrilled with the playoff, one-game-you're-out mentality. Sounds reasonable enough.

Problem is, college football can't help itself.

It says no playoff system, but then allows teams to load up in other ways. Nebraska added TCU for the Aug. 25 "Pigskin Classic", giving the Cornhuskers 12 regular season games. If they reach the Big 12 championship, that's 13 games. A bowl game makes it 14.

And next season, a team could conceivably play in a preseason "classic," followed by a 12-game regular season, followed by a cash-cow league title game, followed by a bowl for a total of 15 games.

So what's the difference between that scenario and a playoff system?

Semantics.

Like it or not, extended seasons are here to stay. Call them whatever you want, but here's guessing the 12-game regular season will eventually become the rule, not the exception. However it shakes out, Hopkins got it right. That's a lot for a body to take.

Get out your calculators: What's the difference between a 12-game season, a conference championship and one bowl game ... and an 11-game season, a conference championship, and two playoff games?

Zilch.

Gene Wojciechowski is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail Geno at gene.wojciechowski@espnmag.com.