HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — If only the Big Ten and Pac-10 weren’t so stubbornly loyal to the Rose Bowl, the BCS would be on its way to a playoff.

That’s the perception — though not the reality — and it’s allowed the other conferences to be safely noncommittal about the possibility of turning the Bowl Championship Series into a four-team major college football playoff.

“I think the characterization of the Big Ten and Pac-10 being at one place and everyone else being at the other place, I don’t think it’s accurate,” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told reporters Tuesday during a break in the BCS meetings.

“Just because somebody says they’re open-minded and interested in looking at other models doesn’t mean they’re committed to it.”

Clearly the Rose Bowl and its separate TV contract with ABC is a major hurdle for the BCS to clear if it wants to adopt the plus-one format. Delany and Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen have said they do not support it.

One magazine even dubbed the Rose Bowl alliance ‘The Axis of Obstruction.”

“I think it’s a stretch myself,” Delany said with a laugh.

He’s got a point.

Even Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive, the man who will present a plus-one plan today to the 10 other conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White, has refused to say whether he and his constituents would vote for such a plan.

Same goes for Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford, who took over for Slive as BCS coordinator in January and immediately said he was committed to putting the plus-one on the agenda for these meetings.