In a nationwide Gallup Poll five years ago, 85 percent of college football fans favored replacing the BCS system with some form of playoff.
Such overwhelming public demand, though, did little to move the sport's power brokers from their long-entrenched opposition to a playoff.
Until now, it seems.
The opposition has softened -- enough so that University of Georgia president Michael Adams last week predicted that a four- or eight-team playoff will be a reality within two years.
His prediction was precipitated by a report that the Big Ten, long a staunch opponent of a playoff, has warmed considerably to the idea.
A deal is far from done, and even though there is a new openness to exploring a limited playoff, there is not a consensus on what form it should take. But the needle clearly has moved in the direction of a playoff, which fans long have clamored for and university presidents, conference commissioners and bowl bosses long have resisted.
What changed? Conference realignments altered some dynamics. TV ratings and attendance declined for many bowls. Last month's all-SEC national title game stirred sentiment for broadening the field. And resistance eroded under relentless criticism of the 14-year-old BCS.
"One of my major concerns all along has been that I didn't think we were paying enough attention to the fans who foot the bill for all this," Adams said, "and I think that realization is beginning to come home."
Adams was among the early college presidents to advocate a playoff, pitching an eight-team version in 2008 that went nowhere.
Later that year, SEC commissioner Mike Slive proposed a so-called "plus-one" format, basically a four-team playoff. The plan called for the top four teams in the BCS standings to be paired in two bowl games -- No. 1 vs. No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3 –- with the winners meeting in a championship game. But the SEC proposal drew support only from the ACC and opposition from the Big Ten, Pac-10 (now Pac-12), Big 12, Big East and Notre Dame as the BCS stuck with its controversial system of a national-title game between the teams that finish the regular season Nos. 1 and 2.
Fast-forward to 2012, and the climate has changed.
When 11 conference commissioners and Notre Dame's athletic director met last month to discuss the future of the BCS, there was, by all accounts, widespread willingness to discuss playoff possibilities. BCS executive director Bill Hancock said after the meeting that 50 or 60 bowl/playoff options were floated.
Current BCS contracts end with the 2013 season, and the goal is to determine any changes by this summer and have them take effect for the 2014 season. Further meetings of the BCS decision-makers are scheduled, the next one late this month.
Momentum seems to be building between meetings.
The Chicago Tribune reported last week that Big Ten members are kicking around an idea for a four-team playoff in which the semifinals would be played on the campuses of the higher-seeded teams and the final would be bid out to potential host cities, a la the Super Bowl.
Also last week, The Arizona Republic reported that Michael Crow, president of Pac-12 member Arizona State, is pushing a playoff that would include the eight highest-ranked conference champions.
"It's no secret that the biggest impediments to [a playoff] historically have been the . . . Big Ten and Pac-12," Adams said. "And so the fact that they are seemingly beginning to change their view will make this all maybe possible."
NCAA president Mark Emmert endorsed a four-team playoff last month, telling reporters at the NCAA convention that the concept "makes good sense" as long as it doesn't grow into a larger tournament.
Certainly, ample opportunity exists for the momentum toward a limited playoff to be stopped or reversed. Among the questions to be sorted through:
How would playoff teams be chosen and seeded? How would the regular season, bowls and players be impacted? How much money would be produced and how would it be dispersed? When and where would the games be played? Would a four-team playoff, which seems to have the most support, put the sport on the road to a larger playoff, which still seems out of bounds to many schools? And in the end, would college presidents agree on a plan?
"What would it look like and whether it's actually going to happen, all of that is premature," Slive told members of the Nashville Sports Council last week. "I think we need the time to sit down and analyze it. We need time to take ideas back to our respective conferences and … [have] a decision to be made sometime later this year."
-- The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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