The BCS is Dead!

Or at least on its last legs, hooked up to a heart-lung machine, just waiting to fade away into oblivion. In a truly important and long overview decision, a select committee of university presidents on Tuesday approved the BCS commissioners' plan for a four-team playoff to start in the 2014 season. This means that the very unfair and very much despised Bowl Championship Series will disappear at the end of next year. This will please just about everyone that doesn't have a vested interest in the status quo. It will also tap into the huge amount of genuine goodwill generated by basketball's March Madness, which is partially replicated.

The move completes a six-month process in which the commissioners have been working on a new way to determine a college football champion. Instead of simply matching the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country in a championship game after the regular season, the way the Bowl Championship Series has done since 1998, the new format will create a pair of national semifinals. No. 1 will play No. 4, No. 2 will play No. 3. The teams will be selected by a committee, similar to the way the NCAA basketball tournament field is set, with the winners advancing to the national championship game. Much better than the biased and exclusionary mess we have now.