An august 12-member group known as the Bowl Championship Series Presidential Oversight Committee meets in Washington D.C. today to pass judgment on a proposal that would provide major college football’s first championship playoff.

The obvious question being: What took them so long?

It isn’t like an assembling of the visages from Mount Rushmore. Instead, it is a group of presidents representing the 11 major conferences and Notre Dame, representatives from Fresno State (Mountain West) and Idaho (Western Athletic) among them.

Yet it is going on 20 years now since the collegiate powers that be started working on a process to determine an honest-to-Keith Jackson national champion and all we might get is a four-team playoff?

They have meandered around a true playoff with a dodge that has been repackaged more often than Coke. In 1992 the scheme was called the "bowl coalition" and it was heralded as the answer to cries for a definitive national champion in major college football. Then came the "bowl alliance" in 1995 and three years later, of course, what we know as the BCS.

It would be nice to be able to report that the folks who are calling the shots on this have finally come around to seeing the inequity in ways of the BCS and its predecessors. It would be refreshing if the voices of the fans had been truly heard and their concerns acted upon.

But that is hardly the case. This is about exchanging one tarnished golden goose for a new, more lucrative, one. Not to mention making sure who receives the best access and gets to pocket the biggest shares. And holding off mounting threats of legal action.

If the public had bought the Alabama-Louisiana State rematch in January and the other BCS events that had surrounded it, there would be a lot less urgency today. But, thankfully, it didn’t. TV ratings for the championship game were the third lowest in 14 years and overall viewership for the BCS bowl package was down 12 percent.

Clearly not the kind of numbers that were going to give the BCS much leverage to improve on its approximately $175 million in rights fees in upcoming negotiations with TV.

So, after years of punting on proposals for playoffs, the BCS is laying before the presidents a plan for a four-team, three-game playoff. One that will generate significantly more money, not to mention likely keep the lion’s share of the championship opportunities — and moolah — in the same pockets.

Look at it for what it really is, another step on the quickening march toward what will be four super conferences of 60-something schools — and everybody else.

If the presidents really want to show they are serious about the oversight their title says they wield, then let them give the BCS marching orders for a real playoff like every other level of college football.

Or, better yet, roll up their sleeves and do it themselves.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.