HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- The most powerful men in the room, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and the SEC's Mike Slive, sit on opposite ends of the large table in the conference room here at the Westin Diplomat, site of the BCS meetings.



It's more than symbolic, of course.



The Big Ten and SEC are rival conferences, and their university presidents and athletic directors have long held different visions of what's best for college football's post-season.



After years of opposition, Delany & Co. appear willing to sign off on a seeded four-team playoff. But the Big Ten plan had the top seeds hosting semifinal games.



The Tribune reported Sunday that the plan was on life support, and that might be understating it at this point.



A source said as much Wednesday morning, and Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley just made brief comments to that effect, saying "there's too much at stake" to play the semifinal games on the road.



Go ahead and howl. Last anyone checked, the only NFL post-season game played at a neutral site is the Super Bowl.



But Florida has not left the state to play a non-conference game since 1991. And that didn't go so well. The Steve Spurrier-coached Gators lost to Syracuse 38-21, and that was their only blemish in that regular season.



So when Foley says there is "too much at stake," it's likely code for: We don't want to risk having to play on a freezing night in Lincoln, Neb., or Ann Arbor, Mich.



SEC teams have won six consecutive national titles without having to wear longsleeves.



Others are using the "logistics" argument to knock down the home-game plan, pointing to stadiums that lack hospitality suites and/or gobs of seats (Boise State, Oregon, TCU).



It will be interesting to get Delany's take on the negative reaction to the "home game" plan. He has yet to emerge for public comment, and the setup here is conducive to allowing officials to meet with minimal media interference. Commissioners can slip from their meeting room to a lunch room without passing reporters.



If Delany meets with the media after the conclusion of today's meetings, he also will be asked how the Rose Bowl would fit into a playoff.



Texas athletic director and longtime playoff proponent DeLoss Dodds took a shot at the Big Ten and Pac-12 in comments made to USA Today, saying those leagues either need to cling to their six-decade partnership with the Rose Bowl or jump on the playoff train.



"The only way it's going to get fixed," Dodds said, "is for the rest of the country to have a playoff of some kind and let them do their (own) deal. And then after five years, their coaches would go berserk because they're not in the mix for a national championship. And they'd have to join it."



tgreenstein@tribune.com



Twitter @TeddyGreenstein

