The Big Ten is not only ready to listen to proposals regarding a national four-team football playoff, league and school officials are kicking around an intriguing idea.



Sources told the Tribune that a Big Ten plan would remove the top four teams from the BCS bowl pool and have semifinal games played on the college campus of the higher seed. That would do away with the facade of "neutral" sites such as New Orleans, Miami and Pasadena, Calif., and ease travel concern for fans.



The championship game then could be bid out, like the Super Bowl.



The concept of the Big Ten even entertaining playoff proposals seemed laughable as recently as two months ago. But in the wake of a low-rated BCS title game that satisfied few outside the Southeastern Conference footprint, the conference is ready to study and contribute ideas.



"We have to listen to the fans; we cannot be tone-deaf," said Northwestern athletics director Jim Phillips, who chairs the Big Ten's Administrators Council. "The Big Ten is open and curious."



In 2008, the SEC proposed a Plus-One — a more palatable term for a four-team playoff — during BCS discussions, and the ACC supported it. But with the Big Ten, Pac-10, Big 12, Big East and Notre Dame disapproving, the plan never materialized.



"There has been a lot of bantering and rhetoric," Phillips said, "but no one has come up with a formal plan."



BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock said that 50 to 60 BCS bowl/playoff plans were presented the day after the BCS title game in New Orleans, but they apparently lack details. The next college football cycle begins with the 2014 season, and most expect a new system to be approved this fall.



Also on the table: Creating a seven-win requirement for bowl teams, a rule that could torpedo more than a half-dozen money-losing games and end embarrassing contests between schools that dumped their head coaches.



And moving up the BCS title game. Alabama's trouncing of LSU took place Jan. 9, a day after the NFL's wild-card weekend. Fourteen percent of the country tuned in, marking the third-lowest rating in the 14 years of the BCS.



"There is a very strong sense that we have missed the boat and are playing games too late," Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany told the Tribune. "Students are back in class, people are back at work."



Delany would not comment on any potential Big Ten playoff proposal, saying he first needs to take the temperature of university presidents, chancellors and athletic directors.



But he did say: "I think sports fans are conditioned to playoffs. I don't begrudge them that. They're looking for more games, but we're trying to do the right thing.



"It's a matter of coming up with something that does not kill the baby with the bath water. We have a regular season that is vibrant. We have 12 games plus a (conference) championship game — that's a lot of games. We have academic calendars, though that doesn't resonate with many people. But if you're dealing with university presidents, faculty and coaches, you're talking about it."



NU's Phillips said that in evaluating playoff proposals, Big Ten officials would use four criteria:



(bullet)Is it fair to the student-athletes already suiting up for 12-13 games?



(bullet)Would it undermine college football's vital regular season?



(bullet)Would the teams be chosen in a way that reflects competitive fairness?



(bullet)Can the Rose Bowl be protected?



Also, how would revenues be divided? Would the NCAA try to get involved? And to address Delany's "slippery slope" concern that a four-team playoff would lead to an eight-teamer, would the parties be willing to approve a deal of perhaps 10-15 years?



Here's another interesting one: Given the SEC's six-year dominance in BCS title games, would the league approve the specter of road playoff games in cold-weather sites?



Picture a game at Ohio or Michigan Stadium played in prime time in late December. It would be see-your-breath, try-to-feel-your-fingers weather.



The Big Ten has accepted playing bowls in warm-weather locales both for practical purposes and because bowls were created as celebrations as much as competitions.



But if officials give birth to a playoff, it will be strictly about competition. And doubling the number of access points — from two to four — would obviously help the Big Ten's cause. Not since the 2007 season has a Big Ten team finished the regular season ranked first or second.



So is it a no-brainer for the Big Ten to approve a four-team playoff that fits all or most of its criteria? Hardly.



Everything in college football is complicated by competing interests.



Some will sympathize with the Rose Bowl, which would fall from No. 2 to No. 4 on college football's must-see list. In many years, the Rose Bowl would lose a Big Ten or Pac-12 champion. And with semifinal playoff games and the championship game possibly bracketing Jan. 1, the Rose Bowl could be marginalized.



There also remain hard-liners such as Michigan athletics director Dave Brandon, who last month told Wolverine Nation: "This whole notion of a playoff is ridiculous. I don't care what you come up with, it's not going to be a fair playoff. You've got a bunch of teams that don't play one another and play different competition and in different time zones in different conferences in different stadiums in front of different crowds and different weather and suddenly … you are trying to arbitrarily decide which one deserves to be in a four-team playoff or a six-team playoff. No matter where you draw that line, you're going to have controversy and people who are honked off because their team got cut off."



tgreenstein@tribune.com



Twitter @TeddyGreenstein