BCS Bowl Games: Automatic Qualifier Status Must Be Revised but Kept

If you don't like the BCS and are looking for a change, all signs point to a change in the near future. It's not the right change, but it's a change.

According to Brent McMurphy of CBSSports, the Automatic Qualifier status that the champions the six major conferences get is likely to be gone when the BCS' current agreement ends after the 2013 season. 

Support is coming from a somewhat unlikely source, a commissioner of a current automatic qualifier conference. McMurphy quoted Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany as saying the following.

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Some of the people that don’t have (BCS AQ status), say they don’t want it...Some of the people that do have it, don’t really care about it. Maybe it needs to be reconsidered. I’m not wed to it. I’m wed to the 1-2 game and I’m wed to the Rose Bowl. I’m not wed to the (BCS AQ) selection process or the limitations.

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He added:

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As long as I can go to the Rose Bowl, I don’t really care.

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That's the problem. Take a look at the teams in the BCS games right now. Actually, just take a look at the Orange Bowl. Clemson and West Virginia each have three losses. Certainly, this is a year where they could have their automatic qualifier status taken away, right?

Well, that's this year. No, I am not particularly interested in watching a BCS game between two three-loss teams, but who's to say that it won't be the Big Ten in another year. In 2011, it wasn't that far from being the Big Ten, as every team in the conference has at least two losses. 

So maybe I am missing Delany's point. Certainly the Rose Bowl tie-ins (Pac-12, Big Ten) can't get special treatment.

Having the automatic qualifiers is actually fine, and I am not going to argue for a full-fledged playoff. It would be nice, but let's focus on more realistic goals. What about a true "plus one?"

Take the four major bowl games. The six conference champions and two at-large teams play in those games. The four teams that win those games are then eligible for the National Championship Game. There are several different ways to decide on what two teams are chosen from there.

You could do a BCS system, have coaches vote, go back to the AP, that doesn't really matter for the sake of this argument. 

In this system, you wouldn't have Alabama and LSU playing each other in the playoff. You would seed those teams and have 1 versus 8, 2 versus. 7, 3 versus. 6 and 4 versus. 5. 

That's the revising that needs to happen before any automatic qualifier is dropped. If the automatic qualifier is dropped, then it would only make sense that the Big Ten would lose the Rose Bowl, at least in the current form. 

If that's going to happen, then we need to find a better way to declare the National Champion.