BCS Option: NCAA Should Adopt the English Premier League's Relegation Model

There is no doubt that the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is one of the most maligned organizations in all of collegiate sports, if not in the entire sports world.

Multiple options have been presented in the sports media of how the system can be repaired and made more equitable for college football teams, who deserve a chance at playing for a national championship.

Sometimes the BCS works, on the surface. This week's Oregon Ducks versus Auburn Tigers national championship game was the best pairing of undefeated teams, although TCU and the three voters that put them at No. 1 in the final Associated Press poll might say otherwise.

It seems a team like TCU getting left out in the cold almost every season.

BCS critics have suggested that a four-, eight- or even16-game playoff would be the best option to finally let these teams decide on the gridiron who is the best in the country. Others suggest that a "plus one" modification of adding a National Championship Game to the existing BCS bowls is the way to go.

These are all viable options to consider, each having its visible upside and built-in flaws.

There is a league that handles the championship competition in a much different way, which is interesting to consider as a model for the BCS: the English Premier League (EPL).

The EPL uses a promotion and relegation system in which the best teams from each league in the hierarchy of English soccer can move up through the system, possibly ascending all the way to the EPL, just as easily as they can fall through the ranks of the lower leagues through relegation due to poor performance on the field.

While this would be almost impossible to apply to individual teams in college football due to conference affiliations, but it could be applied to conferences themselves. 

The BCS System

Currently, the BCS recognizes six Automatic Qualifying (AQ) Conferences: the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10 and of course, the SEC.

There have been substantial complaints from teams in the Mountain West that an AQ bid is equally deserving of their conference given the recent success of its member teams, including TCU and Utah. 

The Western Athletic Conference has also seen success with Boise State, Nevada and Hawaii all either playing in or being on the cusp of BCS games over the past few seasons.

On the flipside, the Big East and ACC have been weak as conferences, with their best teams getting bids to the BCS bowls solely because of the AQ status and in almost every case, coming out on the losing end of their contests with Big 12, SEC or Pac-10 schools.

In other words, the Big 6 aren't the only players in the world of college football.

How AQ Conference Relegation and Promotion Would Work

Here's how relegation and promotion of the conferences to and from AQ status could open up the BCS:

Go on and leave the six AQ conferences intact as they are for the first season of competition. Nothing would change in this scenario until the second year.

In Year 2, the two most poorly performing conferences in terms of overall winning percentage of member schools would drop out of AQ status and the two highest performers on the "outside" would gain AQ status for Year 3.

With this model in place, conferences that do not have the luxury of an AQ bid in the current system could earn the right to an AQ bid through consistent solid performance of all schools in the conference.

Likewise, current AQ conferences could no longer depend on having a BCS bid every season, even in spite of overall poor performance on the field.

There are certainly many variables to consider in this type of arrangement, which would be better suited for another time.

The concept, however, is an interesting one to consider as the BCS continues to absorb criticism from fans of college football around the country.

It certainly works well for one of the world's largest, most profitable and most popular leagues, the EPL.