MWC commissioner: Changes to Bowl Championship Series system could take 5 years

MWC commissioner: BCS changes could take 5 years

HENDERSON, Nev. — The top administrator of the Mountain West Conference said Wednesday that it could take five years to change the way college football championships are decided.

Acknowledging the MWC was still sore about undefeated Utah being shut out of last year’s national championship game, Commissioner Craig Thompson vowed to keep lobbying Congress, Bowl Championship Series administrators and college football’s 10 other conferences for a revamped playoff system.

“We feel a change needs to be made and inclusion needs to be broader,” he said.

In the meantime, Thompson said conference board members decided not to penalize athletes by balking at signing a broadcasting contract and walking away from the existing postseason bowl system. The Mountain West on July 8 became the last conference to sign a broadcasting deal with ESPN for the 2011-14 seasons.

“We couldn’t take our kids voluntarily out of the chance to play in a BCS bowl game,” Thompson said during a state-of-the-conference address to media members at a Las Vegas-area casino resort. “As much as we would like to see change in the system, it is the only system.”

At issue are the number of automatic bids awarded to conferences for postseason play in top-tier bowls, and the money those appearances bring.

Six conferences — the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC — get automatic BCS bids, plus about $18 million each.

The Mountain West, which doesn’t get an automatic bid, calls the system unfair. It has proposed an eight-team playoff featuring first-round play in the four top current BCS bowls — Sugar, Orange, Rose, Fiesta. Winners would advance to a championship.

In a telephone interview, BCS administrator Bill Hancock acknowledged criticism of the current system, which picks two top BCS teams for a championship game based on two polls and six computer rankings.

“We know the BCS is not perfect,” Hancock said from Kansas City. “But it is the best proposal that has been presented that meets the needs of all 11 conferences.”

Last year’s championship matched 12-1 Florida against 12-1 Oklahoma, while undefeated Utah beat Southeast Conference powerhouse Alabama, 31-17.

“The fact is, six conferences had individual bowl deals before the BCS,” Hancock said of the system that began in 1998. “The BCS has to offer them at least as good a deal as they had before, or they wouldn’t participate.”

Hancock added that the other five conferences can earn an automatic qualification, depending on their teams’ performances over a four-year span.

Thompson vowed to “fight within and challenge within, and try to coerce and convince and cajole … our fellow 10 conferences to change the system over the next couple years.”

Thompson, the only commissioner the Mountain West has had since the conference started in 1998, said he was proud of the rising level of play by the nine conference schools — TCU, BYU, Utah, Air Force, UNLV, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State and Wyoming.

He said the MWC would continue its $265,000 contract with a Washington lobbying firm to keep the BCS issue before Congress, which held hearings on the matter May 1.

But he said MWC efforts weren’t connected with calls by Utah state Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch for investigations of whether the BCS violates federal antitrust laws.

“I don’t know what those people are going to do,” Thompson said, adding that he felt that as league commissioner the best way to elbow into the BCS was for MWC teams to win games.

“If you perform and you win games and you’re playing quality opponents and you’re beating the Oklahomas, the Alabamas, the UCLAs, the Michigans, and all the people we’ve beaten,” he said, “that should be our statement.”