It appears more and more they are doing away with the Top 12 Finish and going to a more of a Overall Conference performance.

Ken Davis: Kevin, could you give us an update on your discussions regarding the formula for determining automatic qualifications for four years down the road?

David Frohnmayer: Well, this is Dave Frohnmayer. I'm actually going to (lateral) that to Kevin in just a moment but that is one of the major issues that was in contention (and) - as we develop the original model and then the model that involves the additional Bowl game and I am very (heartened) by the progress that's been made by the commissioners. These are not easy questions. There a lot of historical relationships. There are issues of fairness and equity and what's very heartening to me is (that) with my fellow (Presidents) is the degree of confidence that we have that the commissioners are really narrowing down these questions and that they're are able to do so in a very constructive way with a process that involves more than 100 institutions (and) getting one that's fair and seem to be fair is important and they're doing it.

Kevin Weiberg: I would just add that we did ask the Presidents and Chancellors to give us some time today on this issue. We have made some progress but it is a fairly complex one. There are issues to be addressed like how do we account for conferences of different size - those conferences (that have) eight members as opposed to those who have 12, for example. We've also continued to focus on what are the precise standards that we're going to be using as we move forward. As I think I've said to some of you in the past, we've really been kind of focused on the idea of performance by conferences not individual teams and by that I mean how many teams perhaps would be in the top 12 or the top 25 over a period of time. There's also discussion of should we include some measurement that factors in all members of the conference in an average type way so those are questions that are still being considered. I think the commissioners will return to this question some time after this year's Bowl games are played and will be coming back to it with our Presidents and Chancellors hopefully promptly thereafter.

<a href='http://www.bcsfootball.org/news.cfm?headline=66' target='_blank'>http://www.bcsfootball.org/news.cfm?headline=66</a>

If people want to look for a reason why they're talking about doing away with the Top 12 average ranking, look no further then the SEC a year or so ago, and the ACC this year. It's tough to do that every year and it's not a proper barometer for how strong your conference is. Which conference do you think is stronger, Utah with a #7 rankings last week, or ACC with teams barely on the fringe of the Top 12?