Kramer rejects playoff proposal

Roy Kramer, coordinator for the current Bowl Championship Series, has told the Associated Press that he isn't interested in a Swiss marketing firm's plan for a 16-team college football playoff to begin in 2003.

ISL, a Swiss-based marketing and licensing firm, pitched its to Kramer in December. The firm has since met with many other conferences in hopes of drawing support for the proposal, which consisted of a 16-team playoff that would begin in early December. First-round and quarterfinal games were to be played at the site of the higher ranked team, while the semifinals and title game would use three of the four BCS bowls. The title game would be played in the final BCS bowl and would be played the weekend before the NFL's Super Bowl.

According to Kramer, the plan just has too many holes in it to work. The BCS coordinator said that the BCS plan runs three more years, then the Big 10 and Pacific 10 have a contract with the Rose Bowl for three years after that. Kramer added that the timing of the proposed playoffs won't work because the first-round games would be played on college campuses during weekends in which the NFL season is still continuing. He also feels a playoff system could cause fans to lose interest in regular season play.

"College football is built on the regular season," Kramer said. "Tennessee-Alabama, Georgia Florida, Florida-Florida State, USC-Notre Dame, Michigan-Ohio State - that's the guts of college football, the backbone. If you put your eggs in the playoff basket, we deflate this," Kramer told reporters, drawing comparisons with college basketball. "The NCAA tournament is everything to college basketball. People don't care in January and December."

OSU's Murphy flunks out -- Former two-time All-American left guard Rob Murphy has flunked out of Ohio State.

"He has been dismissed from the university," OSU athletics director Andy Geiger told The Columbus Dispatch on Tuesday night. "He is academically ineligible."

Murphy, who attended summer school last year to regain eligibility for the football season, was taken in the NFL draft in April. But Murphy decided to stay on at Ohio State for his senior year. Or so he thought. The lineman from Cincinnati continued to stuggle in the classroom and was unable to earn the school's mimimum grade-point average.

Possible candidates for Murphy's position on the team include juniors Mike Gurr and Tam Hopkins, or sophomore LeCharles Bentley.

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