BCS Fumbles It Away Again

It was fourth-and-forever for bowl championship series officials and, once again, they punted.

College football leaders came to the Valley of the Sun to dig themselves out of a hole they seem to dig year after year after year.

Major conference commissioners had some hard decisions to make here.

With the BCS in tatters and its brand a national joke, officials huddled for hours as reporters tried not to knock over Oriental urns or disrupt the jet-set crowd at a posh spa and desert resort.

It was an interesting backdrop for a sport that has undergone its fair share of face lifts.

Here’s what happened at BCS restoration VIII:

Instead of scrapping the BCS and announcing that college football was proceeding full-speed ahead toward a playoff (fat chance), or adopting the compromise “plus-one” playoff format that got ABC booted out of the process (except for the Rose Bowl), or leaders taking responsibility for the way their sport chooses its champions, BCS honchos tentatively opted for another bandage fix.

And we know how those have gone.

Needing a new standings formula to compensate for the defection of Associated Press, which after seven years in the BCS suddenly realized maybe it wasn’t a good idea that its participating writers were making news, the BCS has apparently opted to replace the AP poll with another of willing participants.

Reaction: Good luck and see you all back here for another episode of BCS Extreme Makeover.

Twenty of college football’s top minds gathered in one room and the best they could come up with was a replacement poll?

This ought to be a rip-roaring howl.

Over the next couple of weeks, the BCS bureau of recruitment is going to seek out former coaches, college players, administrators and sportswriters to see if they want to help in choosing a BCS champion.

Already, a football fan from Ohio has informed the BCS he would love to vote in the new poll.

“I don’t think we’re going to do a fan poll,” BCS Coordinator Kevin Weiberg said.

How about letting a mascot weigh in? We’re thinking Uga of Georgia

Actually, what the BCS has in mind is a panel that might include another Bulldog -- retired Georgia coach Vince Dooley, and more men of his ilk.

Oh, the pay is lousy and the perks are worse.

Disclaimer: Nothing is official on this, meaning there’s still time for grown men to come to their senses.

In deference to the BCS, these are complicated issues. And, short of a playoff, there is no system immune to potential disaster.

It’s interesting how often disaster always seems to follow the BCS’s tailpipe.

That said, the replacement idea is fraught with problems.

What happens if the new poll, assuming it is administered by the National Football Foundation, has Auburn No. 1 at the end of the regular season but Auburn is No. 3 in the BCS standings?

Remember, two years ago, this happened when USC was No. 1 in both human polls but not in the title game.

In that case, USC was at least able to claim the AP title. While AP will still have its poll and potentially a different No. 1, the new poll would be part of the BCS apparatus and not allowed to stray from the script.

“We would not have such a poll taking a vote after the [BCS] game,” Weiberg said.

But that’s not going to stop Auburn fans from making T-shirts proclaiming their team as NFF national champs!

Where the options ranged from bad to worse, there were better ideas on the table.

The BCS has so far rejected the idea of continuing the BCS standings without a replacement poll.

The theory: It’s the coaches title game, right? It’s their trophy they hand to the title-game winner. Let the coaches take responsibility for their game. Forget the writers and forget the hybrid poll.

As it stands, the American Football Coaches Assn. is contractually obligated to award its national title to the winner of the BCS title game.

This presented a problem two years ago when USC was the coaches’ No. 1 after the regular season but Oklahoma and Louisiana State finished first and second in the BCS standings.

As a result, 34 of the 37 coaches who voted USC No. 1 switched their votes to the BCS game winner, LSU, with three dissenters.

If the coaches are going to act with such reckless regard in matters of common sense, let them take more control of the election process.

The BCS could have opted for a two-pronged formula using only the coaches’ poll and a computer component.

Or, if they needed a ballast, the BCS could resurrect the strength of schedule component to keep its three-part formula.

The real problem is that the coaches don’t want the increased scrutiny. They balk at going it alone and prefer that their poll be buffered by another.

Simply, having another poll in the formula takes the heat off them.

So, for now, the coaches get their way and the chance for more lunacy looms.

Of the prospect of the new poll, Weiberg said, “This is not easy. I think we’ve got a lot of work left to do.”

At BCS headquarters, it seems, the work never ends.