The first step toward a playoff in college football was rejected yesterday by the 11 Division I conference commissioners and Notre Dame, leaving the Bowl Championship Series as the way to determine the national champion.

The Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference set forth a proposal for the "plus-one model" in which the top four teams in the BCS standings would compete in a mini-playoff, but the proposal never gained any momentum among the sport's decision-makers.

"There isn't enough support now for this," SEC commissioner Mike Slive said. "I believe we can look at it again in the future."

But the earliest the topic can be revisited is 2014, when the next television contract is expected to expire.

That means the status quo will remain for the foreseeable future. The top two teams in the BCS standings have met for what passes as a national championship game since 1999.

The SEC led the push for a "plus-one" model because until recently its teams have had more difficulty advancing to the BCS championship game because of the competitiveness of the conference. The Big Ten and Pac-10 were opposed to making a change.

SEC teams have won three of the past five BCS national championships, but LSU would not have played for the title last season if West Virginia had not lost to Pitt in the regular-season finale. If West Virginia had won, the Mountaineers would have played Ohio State for the title. Another SEC team, Georgia, which finished fifth in the final BCS standings, believed it should be considered for the BCS title game.

LSU beat Ohio State handily, 38-24. That victory gave the SEC four BCS titles, twice as many as the Big 12, the next closest conference. The Pac-10, ACC, Big East and Big Ten each have produced one national champion.

The lone team to win from the Big East was former member Miami in 2002. The only other Big East team to play for a BCS title was another former member, Virginia Tech, in 2000.

Despite the low level of participation in the BCS title game, the Big East never has been a strong proponent of change.

Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson served as the chairperson for the NCAA Division I football issues committee for a year while he was athletic director at Nebraska and said he was not surprised by what transpired yesterday.

"We've had discussions on this as a conference," Pederson said. "My personal feelings for why this hasn't worked are that no one has been able to come up with a foolproof solution. No one has come up with something where you say, 'Boy, this is perfect. This will solve everything.' I've sat through a lot of meetings, and it always comes down to it's too hard to put it all together.

"If you have a four-team playoff, people will say there is very little difference between which team is No. 4 and which team is No. 5. There would be controversy there. If you had an eight-team playoff, the No. 9 and No. 10 teams would be unhappy."

If the four-team playoff had been in effect last season, Virginia Tech and Oklahoma would have been involved. But No. 8 Kansas beat No. 3 Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl and No. 9 West Virginia topped the No. 4 Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl.

It has been easier for teams without conference championship games to gain access to the BCS title game. The Big Ten, Pac-10 and Big East do not have conference title games, thus the opposition from the Big Ten and Pac-10. Ohio State has played for the national championship the past two years. Southern California played for the BCS title in 2005 and '06. The Trojans won the title in '05.

Penn State is not completely in line with the Big Ten in opposing a playoff. Coach Joe Paterno has been an open critic of the BCS and favors a playoff.