4-team BCS playoff (obviously) gives Iowa and everyone else more wiggle room

Before we proceed, I will make it clear that this isn't based on some assumption Iowa will have a 12-1 or 11-2 football record sometime down the line. However, the Hawkeyes were 11-1 in the 2002 regular-season and 10-2 in 2009, so there is precedent.

It's all over but the wording on the contract. The unbending BCS chose to bend now rather than be broken later. There will be a sort-of playoff in major-college football, a 4-team event beginning in 2014.

And everyone will be content. For a while, anyhow.

A question I've heard many an Iowa fan pose is if the Hawkeyes will ever win a national football title in their lifetimes. The odds, of course, are stacked against it. But the odds just got twice as good, maybe even better if you promise not to sit down and do the math to prove that wrong.

For Iowa and Iowa State and similar programs, the margin for error to reach the BCS title game as it now stands is as thin as a dime. The Hawkeyes almost have to go 13-0 to play in the BCS championship. At 12-1, they would need no more than one unbeaten team from BCS conferences, and probably no one-loss team from the SEC.

That also assumes Iowa's 12-1 includes a win in the Big Ten title game, and that the regular-season defeat came at the hands of a team that had a very good record itself.

Ten years ago, simply going 11-1 wouldn't have gotten Iowa into a four-team playoff. Iowa (11-1 at the time) was No. 5 in the final BCS standings, behind Miami, Ohio State, Georgia and USC. It played USC in the Orange Bowl, while Ohio State met and beat Miami in the BCS title game.

But with four teams, here's what the Hawkeyes must do to get in BCS playoffs from 2014 forward: Win the Big Ten.

They can do it with a 13-0 mark, or 12-1. Maybe even 11-2 in some instances, as long as they've won the Big Ten title game over a high-quality foe.

Here are teams that would have been in the last five BCS playoffs had it been open to four teams instead of two:

2011 - LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma State, Stanford

2010 - Auburn, Oregon, TCU, Stanford

2009 - Alabama, Texas, Cincinnati, TCU

2008 - Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, Alabama

2007 - Ohio State, LSU, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma

Had there been a 4-team playoff in 2005, two Big Ten teams (Penn State and Ohio State) would have been Nos. 3 and 4, joining USC and Texas in the Final Four. USC and Texas would both have won their semifinals, of course.