At last, a college football playoff is on the way

WASHINGTON - The final announcement of a major-college playoff still oozed of drama, history and change Tuesday, even if the outcome had been expected for a week.

The Bowl Championship Series, often criticized and occasionally despised since its implementation in 1998, will be dead and gone by the 2014 season. In its place will be a four-team playoff of national semifinals and a championship game.

After six meetings by the BCS conference commissioners this year, the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee needed three hours to ratify a sea change in the college football landscape. Finally, the only NCAA sport without a playoff or tournament will have one.

Charles Steger, Virginia Tech president and chairman of the oversight committee, called it "a best-of-both-worlds result. ... A four-team playoff doesn't go too far. It goes just the right amount."

The national semifinals will be rotated among six bowls -- the Rose, Orange, Fiesta, Sugar and two more to be determined -- and be played on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

The title game will be bid out. "It will be much like the Super Bowl," Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said.

The Rose Bowl, in years when it is not a semifinal, will host its traditional Pacific-12-vs.-Big Ten matchup.

A selection committee will choose the four playoff teams based on criteria like win-loss record, strength of schedule, head-to-head results and conference championships. Delany said he expected the committee to include more than 10 but fewer than 20 members, including administrators and possibly current or former coaches.

Most important, Delany said of the committee's members, they must watch plenty of college football. "You can't pass the eye test unless you watch," he said.

Much of the framework was put together a week ago in Chicago, when all the conference commissioners endorsed a four-team playoff.

Nebraska Chancellor Harvey Perlman, the most outspoken critic of the new plan, ultimately conceded to the consensus. Perlman said the Big Ten preferred status quo or the "plus one" model, a title game after the bowls.

"We got our third priority," Perlman said, adding that the Big Ten would "strongly support" the new model.

TV rights money could skyrocket from the current $180 million a year. Industry experts have estimated it could reach $500 million. Negotiations will begin this fall, with rights-holder ESPN having an exclusive 30-day window.

Even BCS executive director Bill Hancock, who has spent seven thankless years defending the current system, extolled the moment. "It's an awesome day," he said. "It's a historic day. It's a great day for college football."

Contains information from news services.