HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) -Even a three-game playoff was too much for the BCS.
Bowl Championship Series officials rejected a plan Wednesday to turn the much-criticized system for deciding a national champ into a playoff involving four teams, starting in the 2010 season.
The BCS format will remain the same until at least the 2014 season.
``After a very thorough, very good discussion among the group, we have decided that because we feel at this time the BCS is in an unprecedented state of health, we feel it's never been healthier during its first decade, we have made a decision to move forward in the next cycle with the current format,'' Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford said.
During five hours of meetings, Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive presented a plan for a plus-one format, matching the No. 1 team in the nation against No. 4, and No. 2 vs. No. 3 in the marquee bowl games. The winners would meet about a week later in the BCS title game. The plan also called for creating a sixth BCS game.
In the end, only the SEC and ACC wanted to even continue the discussion of the plus-one.
``I'm not unhappy,'' Slive said after those meetings with the 10 other conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White at a resort hotel. ``There's no such thing as standing pat. I think we've done a service (by presenting the plan for a plus-one). We owed the fans and media an explanation as to why we're not moving ahead.
``I can't say I'm surprised. There is a bit of disappointment.''
There was no vote taken, the commissioners said, but the leaders of the Big East, Big 12, Pac-10 and Big Ten made it clear they didn't want to move the BCS toward a playoff in any way.
Any change would've needed approval by university presidents.
In the current BCS format, the top two teams in the BCS standings - which use polls and computer ratings to grade teams - after the regular season are matched in the title game.
The idea behind the plus-one is to alleviate some of the controversy by sending four teams into the postseason with a chance to win the national championship.
The BCS has two years left on its current four-year, $320 million TV deal with Fox. Negotiations will likely begin in the fall on a new contract with Fox that'll probably run through the 2013 season and lock in the current format.
The decision to shelve the plus-one came as no surprise. It was a long shot to survive, at best.
Coming into the meetings, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen had said they were opposed to the seeded plus-one format Slive was to present.
On Wednesday, Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese and Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe, for the first time, made it known publicly that their leagues also were against even the smallest possible playoff.
``There's a strong sense in that room of the slippery slope view that there's never been a collegiate or professional playoff that's stopped at four teams,'' Delany said.
Tranghese said he favored an unseeded version of a plus-one, which would set the championship game matchup after the four major bowls are played using the BCS standings, over seeding the top four and playing them off.
``The seeded model looked like a playoff, and we don't think a playoff is in the best interest of college football,'' he said.
The Big Ten and Pac-10's relationship with the Rose Bowl has always been viewed as the major hurdle to changing the BCS. Turns out it was far from the only obstacle.
College football's leaders are concerned a playoff would turn football into a two-semester sport and lessen the importance of a regular season that now has a do-or-die feel to it from week to week.
The Bowl Championship Series was implemented in 1998 after the Big Ten, Pac-10 and Rose Bowl agreed to join with the other four major conferences and three marquee bowls to create an annual national title game involving the top two teams in the country after the regular season.
While the BCS has created championship games that never would have happened under the old bowl system, it's been far from perfect. For the many college football fans desperate to see a playoff that would crown a more definitive champion, the BCS has been a target for their angst.
Almost every season, there's been some dispute leading into the championship game about whether the BCS selected the two most deserving teams.
Undefeated Auburn, from the SEC, being left out in 2004 in favor of Southern California and Oklahoma was what first got Slive thinking that No. 1 vs. No. 2 might not be enough.
Last year, Georgia fans were the loudest to complain when the Bulldogs passed over for the BCS title game in favor of LSU and Ohio State.
Of course, Slive's plus-one wouldn't have solved last year's problems. Georgia, which finished second in the nation in the AP poll behind LSU, was ranked fifth in the BCS standings at the end of the regular season and wouldn't have qualified for a four-team playoff.
So the BCS will stick with the imperfect system it has instead of installing another.
``If it isn't broke,'' White said, ``don't fix it.''
