Sportretort's Blog

Climbing the Mountain. 02/20/2009

The Mountain West Conference wants in.  The audacity!  They think that just because they have won 2 BCS games since 2004 that they deserve equal standing in the BCS.  And I agree.  This forward thinking conference is ready for the big time.  Heck, it even has it’s own network, The Mountain (channel 616 on DirectTV), pushing the envelope with the Big Ten Network.  But how can it work? 

The current BCS rules allow for 6 Automatic bowl births (champions of the Big Ten, Big Twelve, Big East, ACC, SEC and Pac-10) and 4 at large births.  A team from a non-power conference (CUSA, MAC, WAC, Sun Belt and Mountain West) can receive an automatic bid if it ranked in the top 12 in the BCS poll, or in the top 16 and ahead of an automatic qualifier. 

There are several proposals out there.  One is to give an automatic birth to the MWC Champion.  Another is to give an automatic birth to the highest team ranked in the  BCS from the Non power conferences.  But why add another automatic birth?   Why should the Big East champion, for example, be in a BCS bowl if it is ranked 16th or lower? 

 Since the BCS is unlikely to want to  increase the number of automatic bids, here is my proposal. Give the six power conference champions 5 bids, in order of  BCS ranking.  The sixth automatic bid will go to the highest ranked conference champion remaining, regardless of what conference that team comes from, power or non power.  The at large bids will still be chosen the same way.  This will assure access to teams that deserve it and allows the BCS to pass on a power conference on a down year.  Short of a playoff, this system will grant access to any team that deserves it, and keeps the integrity of the bowl system, such as it is.