LOS ANGELES - Leaders of the Pac-12 Conference agreed in principle Saturday to try to end college football's Bowl Championship Series, proposing its replacement with a playoff system that would allow only conference winners to play for college football's national title.

"I don't hear anyone saying business as usual is acceptable," said Edward Ray, Oregon State University's president and chairman of the Pac-12 universities' CEO group. "We need change."

Though a formal vote was not taken among the top Pac-12 university officials who attended Saturday, they expect that to occur at their next meeting later this year.

If the Pac-12 makes its formal recommendation as expected in June, it would come just before BCS bowls prepare late this summer to start negotiations on BCS contract renewals. The BCS contracts expire in early 2014.

The Pac-12 action is not unexpected. Arizona State University President Michael Crow advocated for the idea in Phoenix earlier this year. College football and the BCS have come under increasing criticism amid reports of lax financial oversight and administrative abuses and questions about the fairness of the bowl-selection system.

Presidents and chancellors of the Pac-12 Conference schools discussed the future of the BCS on Saturday behind closed doors at a hotel adjacent to Staples Center, home of the Pac-12 men's and women's basketball championship games.

What emerged, according to Ray and Crow, was consensus that the current BCS system needs to significantly change and that it should be replaced by a playoff system that may or may not include current BCS bowl members, including the Valley's Fiesta Bowl.

However, the Pac-12 chief executives want to protect the iconic Rose Bowl's status as an elite postseason game in which only representatives from the Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences play. In a playoff scenario, it might or might not be one of the playoff games.

The executives also do not want to extend the college-football season, even preferring to shorten it so the championship game is closer to New Year's Day. Officials said they do not want to cut into class time for college football players.

Ray and Crow said a final recommendation likely will occur in the executives' early June meeting in San Diego.

Crow had gone into the meeting pushing for an eight-team playoff that would leave the best teams out of the Fiesta Bowl and other BCS games. But Ray said it would be easier to have a four-team playoff in the near future, though the Oregon State president didn't rule out a larger playoff pool down the line.

Crow said he would be fine with a four-team playoff.

"I'm pushing for reform," Crow said. "I'm pushing for a new system."

The Fiesta Bowl declined to comment on the Pac-12's proposed recommendation. The Rose Bowl said it would not comment until after it has meetings with Pac-12 and Big Ten representatives during the next few months.

Ray and Crow said the Fiesta Bowl and other current BCS bowls, including the Sugar and Orange, could be a part of a playoff system, but that particular issue was not widely discussed.

Seeking a playoff is an about-face for the Pac-12, which has killed the idea in the past.

But Ray, who also chairs the executive committee of the NCAA, college athletics' governing body, said there is growing momentum within the Pac-12 and around the country to change college football's postseason.

He said one of the biggest problems is that the BCS uses polls and computers to create a championship-game matchup, leaving other contenders out of the title hunt. The BCS also creates matchups for the four non-championship BCS bowl games.

"Something that doesn't get you into a championship game simply by a vote appeals to people," Ray said.

Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott also criticized the current system.

"The BCS polls have had unintended consequences that are very negative in terms of the culture around football that places a premium on not losing," Scott said. "The BCS system really doesn't have any value around strength of schedule. It's about won-loss records. It's encouraged by coaches and conferences to want to schedule games as easy as possible and to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes more to buy games and easy wins."

The Pac-12 is one of six major conferences that receive automatic bids to play in the four BCS bowls -- the Fiesta, Rose, Sugar and Orange. The universities belonging to the Pac-12 are Arizona, Arizona State, California, Colorado, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, University of Southern California, Utah, Washington and Washington State.

While input is needed from the five other power conferences -- the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12 and Southeastern -- to change the system permanently, a Pac-12 vote for a playoff and other reforms would significantly weaken the current system.

Universities not in large conferences that automatically qualify for bowls also have complained that even if they make it into one of the BCS games, they receive smaller payouts than members of the major conferences.

In its examination last fall of problems within the BCS, The Arizona Republic found that some schools lose money playing in BCS games; that the BCS bowls lavish gifts on officials from universities to stay in the elite system; and that the non-profit organizations that run the bowls pay their top executives more than $500,000 a year.

Attempts to reach Bill Hancock, executive director of the BCS, Saturday to discuss the Pac-12 proposal were unsuccessful.

The Pac-12's executives are just the latest group to push for a playoff. Following this year's BCS championship game, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said he was open to a playoff system, as was NCAA President Mark Emmert.

The reason: In that championship game, the University of Alabama beat Southeastern Conference rival Louisiana State University, even though Alabama did not win the SEC or its division. Some viewed the game as symbolic of flaws in the BCS selection system.

Another playoff proponent is University of Georgia President Michael F. Adams, whose school is in the SEC. He recently speculated there would be a four- or eight-team playoff in 2014-15, after the current four-year BCS contract expires.

"He actually proposed an eight-team playoff in 2008," Chuck Toney, an assistant to Adams, said in a phone interview late last week. "But it did not get much traction. He feels frustrated for the fans, and he feels there might be a better system to decide the national championship for the top level of college football."

While the Pac-12 is a member of the BCS, which has been in place since the 1998-99 college-football season, the conference was not part of the bowl alliances that were precursors to the BCS.

The Pac-12 has a long-standing relationship with the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. If the other power conferences are not receptive to its proposition to launch a playoff system, Scott said, postseason play could merely return to the old days in which its conference champion played the winner of the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl.

"The default we have is a bowl relationship that started the bowl system and has been around for 100 years," Scott said. "If we can be a part of a system that goes beyond that, our conference is open to that. But our conference places the highest priority on the Rose Bowl tie-in."