The BCS commissioners are backing a playoff plan with the sites for the national semifinals rotating among the major bowl games and a selection committee picking the teams.
The plan will be presented to university presidents next week for approval.
Once the presidents sign off - and that seems likely - major college football’s champion will be decided by a playoff for the first time starting in 2014.
“We are excited to be on the threshold of creating a new postseason structure for college football that builds on the great popularity of our sport,’’ Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick said Wednesday.
All 11 commissioners stood shoulder-to-shoulder behind Swarbrick, who read the BCS statement from a podium set up in a hotel conference room in Chicago.
The commissioners have been working on reshaping college football’s postseason since January. The meeting Wednesday was the sixth formal get-together of the year. They met for four hours and emerged with a commitment to stand behind a plan.
The commissioners refrained from providing specifics of the plan in their announcement.
Connecticut to fight ban
Connecticut athletic director Warde Manuel said the school would continue to fight what it believes was an unfair process that led to the banning of its men’s basketball team from the 2013 postseason, but he does not believe the punishment will be overturned.
His comments came as the NCAA released its annual Academic Progress Rate report for the 2010-2011 academic year, and UConn, as expected, received a 978 of a possible 1,000. Manuel called the score “outstanding.’’
But it is not high enough to offset low scores from previous years and allow the team to qualify for the tournament.
Under rules implemented last October, the NCAA requires a team to have a 900 average over four years or a 930 over two years to qualify for its postseason.
Joining the Huskies on the banned list are Arkansas-Pine Bluff, California-Riverside, Cal State Bakersfield, Jacksonville State, Mississippi Valley State, North Carolina-Wilmington, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Toledo, and Towson.
Meanwhile, UConn and US women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma said the Olympic team should not be distracted by an employment discrimination lawsuit filed by a security official who claims she spurned his advances.
UConn to Hockey East?
Connecticut men’s hockey will leave Atlantic Hockey and join Hockey East for the 2014-15 season, according to a USCHO.com report. Hockey East representatives toured the Storrs, Conn., campus last month. An official announcement could come Monday. The Huskies are expected to play some home games at the XL Center in Hartford . . . Kent State and two-time defending national champion South Carolina will meet Thursday morning after rain postponed their College World Series elimination game Wednesday night at Omaha.