This picture is from ESPN’s Facebook page (good thing they can spell COLLEGE), and these are all of the basic details that are available at the moment and have been hammered out.  Coincidentally the current BCS TV contract is up around the same time this playoff system is supposed to start and there are talks that it could yield a $5 Billion contract over the 12 year span.  I firmly believe that at some point the playoff field will expand to eight teams, especially once they see how much more money they can make from the new system and how much people enjoy the finality of a playoff.  There will always be people who question the system, but there is finally a playoff in every NCAA sport, at every NCAA level, to determine the National Champion.

I’m curious to see who will be on the committee, but that obviously has not been determined yet.  It should be noted though, that there are three contract bowl games and the other three bowls will be called “access bowls” and there will be bowl games that bid on them.  The contract bowls are the Rose Bowl (Pac 12-Big Ten), Orange Bowl (ACC-unknown) and the “Champions Bowl” (Big 12-SEC).  The access bowls are likely to be filled by the Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and Cotton Bowl, but the access bowls still have to be bid on and won’t be determined for a while.  I am interested to see what details will be released about these so-called “access bowls.”  There are also no more Automatic Qualifiers and so the Big East could be forever squeezed out of the new format, but this also remains up in the air.

The semi-finals will be played on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day and the Championship will be played on “Championship Monday;” the first Monday that is six days or more after the final semi-final game has been played.  It was also determined that this Championship game will not be branded and will be run by the conferences. The criteria the committee will use to select the teams for the Playoff games should consist of: team record, strength of schedule, head-to-head results and whether a team is a conference champion.

A lot is left up in the air, and I doubt it will be decided any time soon; seeing as they have two years to decide.  No one knows how the revenue will be split, how the teams will officially be selected, or what three of the six bowl games will be, but it is nice to know though that there will be a playoff and the BCS is on its way to the graveyard.  To quote someone I don’t like, “it’s about damn time.”