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Aliens might visit before the BCS gets the postseason right

By JIM LITKE, AP Sports Columnist
April 27, 2005
The BCS is holding its annual meeting this week at a luxury hotel in sunny Arizona. As exercises in futility go, it is rivaled only by UFO conventions.

And right now, it's an even-money bet whether aliens will be regular visitors to the planet before college football gets what it has needed for decades: a playoff to decide its champion on the field.

Instead of real competition, the Bowl Championship delegates continue to twist logic into pretzels, keep their fingers crossed until they suffer cramps and tinker with the formula every offseason since they hijacked the postseason in 1998. Unfortunately, nothing that will be decided by the time they head back home Wednesday is going to tilt the odds in the game's favor. That's because those delegates are too busy trying -- yet again -- to convince the rest of us to trust their vision.

That became considerably harder to do last December, when The Associated Press told the BCS to stop using its media poll as one of three equally weighted components in determining the BCS rankings. That poll, along with the USA Today/ESPN coaches poll and six computer ratings, provided the basis for the BCS standings, which, in turn, decided which two teams played for the national championship and which others got slots in the glamorous, big-money bowl games.

To the delight of BCS members, there was no shortage of volunteers lining up to serve as alternatives to the AP poll. The early favorites were the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame, which offered to put together a panel of former coaches and administrators, and the NCAA Division I-A Athletic Directors Association, which said it could draw voters from eight different segments of the college football world.

According to USA Today, officials from each group arrived with lists bearing more than 100 possible names. Those totals, however, calmed BCS coordinator Kevin Weiberg's concerns only so far.

``The question is how many people would be willing to participate in it?'' said Weiberg, who also serves as commissioner of the Big 12 Conference. ``Under what expectations would they participate in it?''

Considering past history, those expectations had better be low. Media members who voted in the AP poll came in for considerable harassment in previous years because their ballots were made public. But fans and even the occasional coach took it to a new level last season. While Texas and Cal battled to the wire last season for a spot in one of the BCS bowls, Longhorns coach Mack Brown openly lobbied voters and some of his fans offered in e-mails to pass along their recommendations using blunt instruments.

Making matters even tougher for potential replacements, Weiberg said the BCS is considering forcing voters to reveal their final ballots, at the very least, and may impose the same requirement on the coaches' poll. Considering how many conflicts of interest the coaches are involved in -- more than a few have contracts paying handsome bonuses for BCS appearances -- finding enough members of that fraternity to vote could present a whole new set of headaches.

American Football Coaches Association executive director Grant Teaff said Monday, ``Our coaches are willing to do whatever it takes to make this process the best it can be.''

That said, Teaff made it abundantly clear that coaches would make their votes public only after plenty of kicking and screaming. ``Y'all will have a field day with it,'' he told reporters. ``Coaches will be ducking and diving.''

Tough luck, but it comes with the territory. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution made an open-records request to the 61 schools whose coaches voted in last season's poll asking to release their final votes; 55 did not comply. That won't wash under the latest new-and-improved BCS formula being considered. That's why it came as no surprise when somebody asked Weiberg about the integrity of the process, and he replied, ``We need to work on that question.''

And it's hardly the only one. If the BCS can't settle on a suitable replacement poll, it could decide to use only the coaches' poll and computer ratings to determine its rankings, or scrap the formula entirely and form a selection committee modeled along the lines of the one used to set the NCAA basketball tournament field -- without the tournament, of course.

But anybody who thinks that last idea would fare any better with the public than the current system probably likes flying saucers, too.

``They'd see,'' Teaff said, ``the most mythical national championship you've ever laid eyes on.''

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org

Part Deux

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Fiesta group gets 2007 title game, BCS seeks replacement poll

By BOB BAUM, AP Sports Writer
April 27, 2005
PHOENIX (AP) -- The Bowl Championship Series is looking for a few good men and women who know something about college football.

The purpose: To establish a new poll to help determine the teams that will play for the national championship.

BCS member athletic directors made it clear at their meeting Tuesday that they prefer starting a new poll to replace the departed Associated Press rankings, rather than making radical changes to their formula, BCS coordinator Kevin Weiberg said.

``We continue to look at a poll that would potentially include a panel of voters that would be comprised of individuals who have had experience with the sport, either as administrators, coaches, perhaps former players, things of that kind. That's where we're putting most of our focus at this point,'' said Weiberg, the Big 12 commissioner.

Also on Tuesday, the Fiesta Bowl organization was awarded the first national college football championship game under the new, expanded Bowl Championship Series format.

Beginning in the 2006 season, there will be a new game to determine the BCS national champion, a contest separate from the four existing BCS bowls -- the Fiesta, Orange, Sugar and Rose. In essence, it means that two more schools will qualify for a BCS contest.

As is the case under the current system, the teams that finish first and second in the BCS rankings will play for the championship.

The first title game under the new format will be played Jan. 8, 2007, at the Arizona Cardinals' new stadium set to open in the fall of 2006 in Glendale, Ariz. The Fiesta Bowl will be played in the same stadium a week earlier, on Jan. 1. The stadium also will be the site of the 2008 Super Bowl.

The formal announcement of the Fiesta selection came only hours after Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano signed legislation that would require the stadium authority to grant use of the new facility for college football. The bill also turns sales tax revenue from ticket sales and other transactions of the BCS games over to the Fiesta Bowl.

The provisions will mean about $1.75 million in revenue, Fiesta Bowl executive director John Junker said.

Weiberg stopped short of saying the Fiesta would have been bypassed had the bill not become law.

``But clearly we would have some questions that would have to be answered about the financial commitments the Fiesta Bowl had made to us,'' Weiberg said.

The announcement means the sites for the championship game will continue in their current rotation -- Fiesta, Sugar, Orange and Rose. In all cases, the sites will host the national title game a week after their regular bowl games.

The second of the three days of BCS meetings centered on finding a replacement for The Associated Press poll as part of the formula to determine the two teams that play for the championship. Weiberg said that while other more radical changes aren't off the table, simply replacing the AP poll seems to be the preferred alternative of the BCS schools.

As of the end of last season, The Associated Press withdrew permission for using its poll in the BCS calculations. That left the ESPN-USA Today coaches' poll as the lone human-voting poll.

BCS officials have rejected any suggestion that the coaches' poll and the computer rankings are enough. They want another poll.

The BCS has promised a decision on the new formula by July 15, but Weiberg said it could be done sooner. Discussions will be held during the next two weeks to try to resolve the poll issues.

The National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame had representatives at the BCS meetings and emerged as a possible entity to oversee the new poll. The NCAA Division I-A Athletic Directors Association also is a possibility, but Weiberg said the athletic directors themselves were not keen on the idea of voting in such a poll.

Those voting in the new poll would have to make at least their final ballots public, Weiberg said. That's something the BCS leaders want the coaches' poll voters to do, too. Currently, coaches' ballots are secret.

``The issue of transparency continues to be a primary concern to us,'' Weiberg said. ``We have not resolved those issues, and it is one of the considerations in determining whether we can move forward with a replacement poll. But I think, without a doubt, that issue continues to be sort of foremost in our mind both for the coaches' poll as well as for any replacement poll that would plug into that spot.''

Weiberg said the number of people voting in the new poll has yet to be determined. The new poll preferably would not start until early October, he said.

``We think that it's important for games to be played for voters to have a chance to see the results of those games,'' he said.