The NCAA Tournament is one of the most watched sporting events because in almost any game the underdog can knock off the favorite.

Mixing the mid-majors with the schools from the power conferences has made for excitement and surprises, and gives the tournament high ratings throughout.

Unfortunately, the school presidents haven't seen the light on football, according to NCAA president Myles Brand. He told reporters that presidents of the 11 Division I-A conferences have shown no inclination toward a football tournament.

"Will we see in the short run a movement toward a tournament of I-A football? I doubt it very much, although I don't think it's closed," Brand said. "Would we move, for example, a four plus one (one game added to the four BCS bowls)? It's possible. I think some discussions may take place. I doubt very much we'll move to a large-scale tournament in any case. Twelve games of regular season make that a difficult thing to do."

One of the arguments over the years against a football playoff has been athletes missing class time. Brand dismisses that argument.

"The sport that misses the least amount of classes is football," he said. "I mean, you're home half the time. It's one game a week. The sport that misses the most is golf or maybe tennis. A lot of traveling goes on there. In basketball, it's probably on the heavier side, a little past middle, but not in the extreme."

http://www.nola.com/sports/t-p/index.ssf...136570.xml

set their schedules both with Mid-Majors and powerhouse. The regular season is the playoffs