Standings Format for BCS Could Be More of Same

Brace yourselves, college football fans, as it appears next season’s bowl championship series standings format will look strikingly familiar to last season’s.

College football commissioners have all but decided to create a rankings index to replace the Associated Press writers’ poll, which pulled out of the BCS last year because of conflict-of-interest issues.

“At this point, that clearly is where the focus is,” Kevin Weiberg, BCS coordinator and Big 12 Conference commissioner, said after all-day meetings Tuesday.

As with many things associated with the BCS, things can still go haywire -- which is why officials can’t officially sign off on the deal.

For one, the BCS needs to recruit 50 to 60 former coaches, players, administrators -- and possibly a few sportswriters -- to serve on a poll in which participants would have to reveal their final votes publicly and possibly incur the subsequent wrath.

Last year, the BCS simplified its formula to give equal weight to the writers’ and coaches’ polls and a computer index.

In the proposed plan, a new poll would replace the AP poll in the three-pronged equation.

Since 1998, the BCS has used a rankings system to determine which two teams play for the BCS national championship. In a sport that refuses to embrace a playoff, the standings are also used to slot schools into major bowl games and determine at-large qualifying berths for non-BCS schools.

Although the BCS has had glitches from the outset, results the last two years raised questions about the sport’s credibility.

In 2003, USC finished No. 1 in both polls but No. 3 in the BCS standings -- leaving college football with split national titles, the very thing the BCS standings were supposed to prevent.

Louisiana State beat Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl, and USC claimed the AP trophy by beating Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

Last year, more controversy erupted when the top three teams -- USC, Oklahoma and Auburn -- finished unbeaten.

USC defeated Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl for the BCS title, and 13-0 Auburn ended up with a Sugar Bowl trophy.

The credibility of the writers’ and coaches’ polls was called into question when voters were left to determine whether California or Texas would play in a $16-million bowl game.

The controversy prompted AP to pull its poll out of the BCS.

Weiberg said other standings options remain on the table, but those appear to be contingency plans in case the “replacement poll” can’t be produced.

One fallback includes continuing the BCS standings with only the coaches’ poll and a computer index, which the American Football Coaches Assn. opposes.

Grant Teaff, the AFCA’s executive director, said this week the coaches probably would make their final votes public as a condition of remaining a part of the BCS formula.

Weiberg said there are many complicated issues related to the replacement poll, which would be administered by an outside organization (possibly the National Football Foundation/College Football Hall of Fame), such as how many people would serve on the poll and would poll members want to reveal their final votes and face a backlash.