From the beginning, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany has supported a playoff, but he's also been in favor of doing things his way.
Remember, Delany is the same guy who supported the ill-conceived Rose Bowl plan, which preserved the Pac-12-Big Ten Rose Bowl tradition, but forced other teams to actually have to fight their way into a playoff. Shockingly, no one else supported that idea.
It's a given that college football is going to a four-team playoff system, but how those four teams are chosen is still up for debate. Well, Delany has an answer. According to what is being called the "Delany Plan," the top four conference champions should go, but only if they're ranked in the top six of the national rankings.
On the surface it seems simple enough: If four conference champions are ranked in the top six you take the top four conference champions. When fewer than four conference champions are ranked in the top six the next highest ranked team would get into the playoff.
Done and done.
However, sometimes the conference champion isn't always the better team. In 2011, the playoff would have been (according to the BCS standings) No. 1 LSU vs. No. 5 Oregon and No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 3 Oklahoma State. Looks great unless you're No. 4 Stanford, which didn't win its conference, but was the higher ranked team.
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