Mountain West Asks for Sweeping BCS Changes

The Mountain West conference unveiled its proposed changes to the BCS rules this afternoon and asked to move the burden decisions made within the BCS from the hands of the pollsters to the players on the field. The conference asked to change both the way the teams playing for the national championship are determined as well as which conference champions automatically qualify for BCS bids.

The Mountain West is not satisfied with current contracts the other 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame have signed with ESPN and are proposing a number of changes to the way the college postseason is structured.

The Mountain West proposes making sweeping changes to the BCS system and asks to replace the computers and polls with a 12-person committee. Also they propose adding a fifth BCS bowl game as well as a four-team playoff made from the winners of the other four current BCS bowl games.

After the 10 BCS teams are determined, the lowest two teams play in the fifth BCS game and their season ends. The eight other teams play in the their BCS games after being seeded by the committee, keeping in mind conference bowl tie-ins. The four winners of those games are re-seeded by the committee to play in national semifinal games, and the winners of those games then play in a national championship.

The proposal also ask that new rules be implemented that determine which conferences are automatic qualifiers or which conference champions have guaranteed bids into college football’s most lucrative games.

Currently, the BCS decides this by using the following set of rules:

"Each conference will be evaluated over a four-year period based on the three elements: the average rank of the highest ranked team, the average rank of all conference teams, and the number of teams in the top 25.”

The Mountain West proposal asks that the conferences rely instead on the results of games played on the field between the conferences as a means of determining automatic qualification.

The rule as it is proposed reads: An FBS conference will be an “AQ Conference” if over a two-season period the conference (1) has played a minimum of 20 inter-conference regular-season games against the six current AQ Conferences, and (2) has a minimum winning percentage of .400 in these games.

While its perception in the polls has not been as high, the Mountain West provides the data for the last two years and the last five years to show a clear separation between the conferences when comparing the games played on the field.

Over the last two years, the Mountain West has had the best record of all FBS conferences in inter-conference games played against current AQ conferences (16-13). The Mountain West is also asking that based on the results of those games to be included as an AQ conference beginning in the 2010 season.

In both the two- and five-year periods provided by the conference, all six of the current AQ conferences and the Mountain West had winning percentages of at least .439. The best winning percentage of one of the remaining non-AQ conferences was the WAC with a .176 winning percentage over the last two years.

It remains to be seen how the other 10 conferences will react to the proposal.

Inter-Conference Regular Season Records Against AQ Conferences (2007-2008)

Conference Record

MWC 16-13 (.552)
ACC 22-18 (.550)
Big Ten 10-9 (.526)
Pac-10 10-9 (.526)
Big East 14-15 (.483)
Big 12 12-14 (.462)
SEC 13-16 (.448)
WAC 6-28 (.176)
MAC 11-57 (.162)
Sun Belt 5-43 (.104)
C-USA 4-44 (.083)

Inter-Conference Regular Season and Postseason Records Against AQ Conferences (2005-2008)

Conference Record

Pac-10 32-20 (.615)
SEC 43-36 (.544)
Big East 36-38 (.486)
Big 12 35-37 (.486)
MWC 29-32 (.475)
ACC 45-52 (.464)
Big Ten 29-37 (.439)
WAC 13-62 (.173)
MAC 17-109 (.135)
C-USA 11-92 (.107)
Sun Belt 6-78 (.071)