BCS Is Focus of Meetings

College football leaders have convened here this week to sort out the very complicated details of a very complicated sport.

Although no formal announcements are expected to emerge from meetings involving college football commissioners, athletic directors, bowl and television representatives, the power brokers hope to seriously come to grips on the following major issues:

* The bowl championship standings formula. There is no question the 6-year-old system for deciding college football’s champion will be changed. The only question is how after last year’s debacle in which USC finished No.1 in both polls but was left out of the national-title game because the Trojans finished No. 3 in the BCS standings, a formula that factors polls, quality wins, strength of schedule and a computer component.

USC claimed the Associated Press share of the title, and Louisiana State won the BCS crown.

BCS commissioners have decided not to eliminate the controversial computer component, but are seeking ways to lessen its impact on the standings.

“We’re trying to simplify it, make it more understandable,” BCS coordinator Michael Tranghese said.

* The fifth BCS bowl. College presidents in February agreed to add a fifth major bowl to the BCS rotation to provide more access to schools from the five conferences that are not part of the BCS, a partnership that includes the Pacific 10, Big Ten, Atlantic Coast, Big East, Southeastern and Big 12 conferences, plus Notre Dame.

Tranghese said that 12 bowls are interested in becoming the fifth BCS bowl, among those the Capital One, Gator, Peach, Holiday and Cotton.

* Television negotiations. The current BCS contract expires after the 2005 season. ABC, which helped conceive the BCS, has exclusive negotiating rights before the BCS can consider outside bids.

The Rose Bowl has a separate contract with ABC and will begin negotiations May 12. After that contract is completed, ABC and the BCS have a 45-day window in which to negotiate.

Loren Matthews, ABC’s senior vice president of programming, dismissed a published report that said his company is preparing to make a lucrative offer to the BCS that would involve a fifth BCS bowl game plus an additional “national title” game.

Although Matthews says ABC lost money on the original deal, he insists the network is very interested in maintaining its stranglehold on college football programming.

“We are the network of the BCS,” Matthews said.

BCS commissioners would like to complete a “road map” to the future this week and finalize many of the major issues by early summer.