New NCAA President Won't Make Playoff Headway

I'm the resident playoff advocate around here, while cocknfire's not quite so gung-ho about the prospect. Anyway, the new NCAA president Mark Emmert has gone on the record regarding playoffs before (H/T DocSat) :

"I happen to be one," insists University of Washington president Mark Emmert, "that thinks it's inevitable we'll have a playoff."

Great news for playoff fans, right? Um, not quite:

Asked about pushing for a Bowl Championship Series football playoff system, Emmert said that decision was something the NCAA would leave to university presidents.

"We'll join in those conversations," he said. "I do not expect the NCAA to lead in that charge."

The whole reason why we have a bowl system and the BCS is because the NCAA has been hands off with the football postseason since time immemorial. That's a good thing generally, because otherwise every conference down to the Sun Belt would be able to argue its way into an automatic bid to a postseason tournament just like the microconferences do in basketball. It's a bad thing in the sense that there is no one in charge of everything who can force everyone to get on board the playoff train (which would actually be another good thing if you don't want a playoff).

I do think it's inevitable that we'll get a playoff because you can only resist what 75+ percent of your fans want for so long. Never is a long time, and at the very least we'll get to a point where the old guys who run everything will be too young to remember life before the BCS when the non-BCS bowls actually meant something. That's the absolute latest we'll see some kind of tournament.

I think we'll get a plus one construct much sooner than that, but regardless, it won't be the NCAA mandating its existence.