BCS gets boot in favor of four-team playoff

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The best way to determine a major college football champion seemed so obvious to so many for so long. Just have a playoff.

Now the people in charge of making that decision are on board, too.

Come 2014, the BCS is out. Playoffs are in.

A committee of university presidents approved a plan Tuesday for a four-team playoff put forward by commissioners of the top football conferences.

?It?s a great day for college football,? BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock said. ?As soon as the commissioners realized they could do this and protect the regular season, the light went on for everybody.?

Instead of simply matching the nation?s No. 1 and No. 2 teams in a title game after the regular season, the way the BCS has done since 1998, the new format will create a pair of national semifinals.

No. 1 will play No. 4, and No. 2 will play No. 3 on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1. The sites of those games will rotate among six bowls. The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., is guaranteed a spot, and the to-be-determined site of the newly formed bowl created by the SEC and Big 12 is likely to be another, Slive said.

The other current BCS bowls ? the Orange, Sugar and Fiesta ? are not yet guaranteed spots in the rotation, but will get first crack at bidding for them. The Cotton Bowl, played at the $1.1 billion Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, has long wanted to be part of the BCS and will no doubt push to be a part of the rotation, possibly as host to the Big 12-SEC game.

The winners of the semis will advance to the championship on the first Monday in January that is six or more days after the last semifinal. The first ?Championship Monday? is set for Jan. 12, 2015.

The site of the title game will move around the way the Super Bowl does, with cities bidding for the right to host.