SEC's fingerprints all over NFL draft, college football playoff (Herndon)

Trent Richardson.JPGCleveland's first-round pick, Trent Richardson of Alabama, was one of nine players selected from the SEC in the first round of the NFL draft on Thursday. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

MOBILE, Alabama - Mike Slive must be grinning from ear to ear right about now.

Last week, a group of his previously recalcitrant peers fell over themselves to fall in line with an idea Slive and ACC commissioner John Swofford proposed four years ago -- a four-team playoff model for college football.

Why have staunch defenders of the status quo, such as the Big Ten's Jim Delany and the Pac-12's Larry Scott, come around to Slive's way of thinking? Because Slive's teams keep winning championships.

As all this was happening, the NFL draft began and the superiority of the SEC was underscored.

Nine SEC players went in the first round, the most of any conference, and eight went in the first 18 picks.

Why have SEC teams won the last six BCS titles in a row? Because they have the best players, and more of them.

So while face after smiling SEC face provided a promotional video for SEC recruiters at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday, Slive was preparing for the biggest battle left in relation to college football's new-look postseason -- how to determine the participants.

While there is still disagreement over the sites for semifinal games, the most important argument to come will be over models being pushed by Scott and others that call for a four-team playoff to include only conference champions.

Since it was this year's SEC-only BCS title game that spurred this latest interest in overhauling the BCS system, it's only logical that they want to eliminate the possibility of that happening again. It would also be dead wrong.

Whatever its faults, the BCS got one thing right: Its goal was to create a game between the best two teams in college football, not the two best conference champions.

One solution to pick the four best teams might be a selection committee, like the NCAA basketball tournament. Any urge to rely solely on computers should be resisted -- there are too many variables involved to leave the matter strictly up to mathematics.

Whatever selection method is chosen, it's likely that if it's an open field, a four-team playoff creates a better chance of having two SEC teams in the title game, not a worse one.

The Pac-12 and others may fight that, but Slive's argument against the conference-champion-only crowd is simple. All he needs to do is pop in a tape of the BCS championship game, stand back as the commissioners watch Alabama's Courtney Upshaw and Don'ta Hightower decapitate the LSU offense, pause for dramatic effect and then ask:

"Could any of your champions have beaten this team?"

Even in that room, I doubt he'd find many people who honestly think so. The New England Patriots, who drafted Hightower, and Baltimore Ravens, who drafted Upshaw, certainly don't.

