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NCAA President Mark Emmert would support a four-team playoff in college football — as long as the field doesn’t grow.

After giving his annual state of the association speech Thursday in Indianapolis, Emmert acknowledged he would back a small playoff if that’s what Bowl Championship Series officials decide to adopt.

“The notion of having a Final Four approach is probably a sound one,” Emmert said when asked what he heard coming out of New Orleans this week. “Moving toward a 16-team playoff is highly problematic because I think that’s too much to ask a young man’s body to do. It’s too many games, it intrudes into the school year and, of course, it would probably necessitate a complete end to the bowl system that so many people like now.”

Emmert spoke two days after the 11 Bowl Championship Series conferences met to discuss possible changes to the system starting in 2014, but there is no consensus yet.

BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock said Tuesday that 50-60 possibilities for various changes were presented during a deliberate meeting in New Orleans, where Alabama beat LSU in the BCS title game Monday night. Hancock anticipates it will take another five to seven meetings to reach a conclusion in July.

One possibility is the four-team playoff, or the so-called plus-one approach, that would create two national semifinals and a championship game played one week later. The original proposal, made in 2008 by the commissioners of the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference, was emphatically shot down by the leaders of the Big Ten, Pac-10, Big East, Big 12 and Notre Dame.

The BCS title game pits the nation’s top two teams based on poll and computer rankings.

But momentum is clearly growing for a larger playoff system.

Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany acknowledged this week that he would now consider the prospect of a four-team field.

“Four years ago, five of us didn’t want to have the conversation,” Delany told reporters earlier this week. “Now we all want to have the conversation.”

Then on Thursday, the BCS picked up another major endorsement for a potential playoff.

Emmert has long said he expected changes to the BCS system and has repeatedly offered to help the BCS debate if they want it. The NCAA licenses bowl games, but does not run them. It also has no direct authority over the BCS system.

But a small, four-team tournament could be the perfect remedy for what many still consider a flawed system.

“I see a lot of ways that a Final Four model could be successful,” Emmert said.

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FROM THE FINANCIAL TIMES…

@ChrisAdamsMKTSChristopher Adams

developing

A possible delay for six months is being discussed

(Via) 

A car went into the Hudson River Thursday morning at 96th Street and the Henry Hudson Parkway, and one person has been pulled from the water.

Divers were searching for more possible victims.

An FDNY spokesman said someone called in shortly after 10 a.m. to report the car in the water.

The rescued person has been taken to a hospital.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RozwrQF0dPA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FdoSuTAnXg

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A former Oakland County Democratic party operative was sentenced to one year probation and ordered to pay more than $2,500 in fines and court costs for his role in creating “fake” tea party candidates in the 2010 election, in an effort to siphon off support for legitimate Republican candidates.

Jason Bauer, 31, of Waterford said nothing as Oakland County Circuit Court judge James Alexander, a former official with the county’s Republican party, told Bauer what he did was equivalent to murder.

“This is as heinous as someone who tries to kill somebody else,” Alexander said.

Bauer, in November, pleaded no contest to five felony counts of perjury and falsifying notarized documents. He and fellow Democratic official Michael McGuinness were indicted by a one man grand jury in March for attempting to put unknowing residents on the ballot as “tea party” candidates. Investigators said the ruse was an attempt to lure Republican votes, which would dilute the votes for authentic candidates.

McGuinness, like Bauer, pleaded no contest and was sentenced to probation in December.

In sentencing Bauer today, Alexander told him his political career was over for engaging in what Alexander called, “political shenanigans.”

“My sentence pales compares to what you’ve done to yourself,” Alexander said.

Bauer left without talking to reporters. Matt Frendewey, the communications director for the Michigan Republican Party, attended the hearing and said he was pleased.

“Justice has been served, and we are very pleased that these two have been held accountable,” he said

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. Coast Guard cutter rescued six Iranian mariners from a vessel in distress in the Persian Gulf, the second time in less than a week that the American military has come to the aid of Iranians at sea, an official said Tuesday.

The incident was another reminder of U.S. efforts to demonstrate the humanitarian value of its naval presence in the Gulf, a strategic waterway that the Iranian government has threatened to close in retaliation for international sanctions over its nuclear program.

Last Thursday, the U.S. Navy rescued 13 Iranian fishermen who had been held captive by pirates in the northern Arabian Sea, just outside the Gulf, for more than 40 days. That happened just days after Tehran warned the United States to keep its warships out of the Gulf. The fishermen were sent on their way and the 15 pirates were taken aboard the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis.

In the latest incident, Pentagon press secretary George Little said the Iranians aboard a cargo dhow about 50 miles southeast of the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr used flares and flashlights to hail the cutter Monomoy at 3 a.m. local time Tuesday. The vessel’s master indicated that his engine room was flooding and “deemed not seaworthy,” Little said.

Hearing Craig-Hallum confirming competitor OCZ has won business at Facebook. Could be a negative for FIO.

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Futures of frozen orange juice concentrate in New York surged on concerns that the presence of a fungicide in samples from Brazil could crimp supplies.

January-delivery orange juice hit $2.12 per pound, the highest front-month price since November 1977. The more actively-traded March contract was recently trading 10.7% higher at $2.0775 per pound on ICE Futures U.S

The Food and Drug Administration is testing orange juice for a fungicide and says it will order the product removed from the market if it poses a public health risk.

In a letter dated Jan. 9 to the Juice Products Association, an industry group, the FDA said a juice company reported “low levels” of carbendazim, a fungicide, in its and its competitors products.

The FDA said the fungicide was used on the 2011 orange crop in Brazil, the world’s largest grower of oranges and the biggest producer of orange juice.

Florida oranges produce about three-quarters of U.S. orange-juice concentrate supplies, and imports cover the rest. About 75% of those imports come from Brazil.

Asian stocks slip, as Japan exporters suffer from weak Euro – MarketWatch

On Cordray’s first day he has begun programs to supervise pay day lenders, student loans, and mortgage lenders.

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