Delany: 4 team playoff should be for conference champs

Big Ten Conference Commissioner Jim Delany has been at the forefront of talks to bring a playoff of some sort to college football for quite some time now, but he doesn't believe that teams that don't win their division should be included in a four team playoff. 

''I don't have a lot of regard for that team. I certainly wouldn't have as much regard for that team as I would for someone who played nine conference games in a tough conference and played a couple out-of-conference games on the road against really good opponents. If a poll doesn't honor those teams and they're conference champions, I do.'' Delany told the Associated Press.

While in Chicago last week, Delany bounced an idea off reporters that would put four conference champs that rank among the top six teams in the nation into the four team playoff format that is already being discussed. That way an at-large team could logistically still make the four team playoff.

''The polls don't always measure strength of schedule. Some conferences are playing nine games, some are playing eight. The Pac-12 is playing nine and then to go out and play a round-robin game against us, that's 10 and some of them are going to play Notre Dame. That's 11 difficult games. If they're ranked fifth in the country and they won a conference championship, I think that's quite an accomplishment. Some teams don't even win their own division. They started off highly in the rankings, lose early, don't play a championship game and they might end up at four.''

Delany and 11 other conference commisioners will meet with BCS Exectutive Director Bill Hancock to listen to arguments on anywhere between two and seven different playoff configurations in June and (hopefully) draft a proposal for University Presidents to approve by July 4th.