So let me get this straight. West Virginia can finish the season with a mediocre 6-5 record and still guarantee itself a spot in the Bowl Championship Series?

An unlikely scenario given the Mountaineers' weak schedule, but it is possible for them to finish a game above .500 and face a 10-1 Oklahoma club in a BCS game.

Meanwhile, Memphis has a legitimate shot at running the table in a league most experts say is tougher this season. But in that scenario, the Tigers' prize would be a 12th game in their home stadium.

BCS? Make mine a BC powder. It will take at least a dozen to recover from the hangover the last six years of pigskin paranoia has produced.

Apparently, Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese doesn't want to endure the same pain, so he is pledging to take proactive measures that will ensure all leagues have automatic inclusion on a more permanent basis.

On the surface, it may seem puzzling when you consider the steps already taken to close the gap in Division I-A, but in reality, Tranghese's motives are pretty cut and dry.

"The access rules we have adopted are what I call realistic," Tulane president Scott Cowen said. "That is, yes, it's not an automatic regardless of our ranking and performance as it is with the other six (BCS leagues).

"But there is an access rule that I think is much more reasonable and obtainable. So even though we don't have an absolute guaranteed slot every single year, for all practical purposes, if history were to repeat itself like it has over the last six years, at least four out of those six years — maybe five — we would have had somebody in one of the (BCS) bowls."

That's the situation Tranghese wants to avoid — his league scrapping for an at-large berth — because according to BCS guidelines, a conference's champions must have an average final ranking of 12 or better in the BCS standings over a four-year period to avoid a review of its status.

Think the new-look Big East easily meets that requirement? Not even close. Otherwise, Tranghese isn't disguising himself as the Mother Teresa of college football.

My guess is the Big East boss has spent the past week perusing the preseason publications at the local Barnes and Noble. Many rank Conference USA a rung above the Big East this year, with the Mountain West Conference not far behind.

And when the next round of league shuffling commences following the 2004-05 academic year, there will be little, if any separation between the three. So basically, Tranghese has no choice but to pursue a system that will guarantee his downsized league has an automatic bid.

But the chances of that occurring without further modifications to the agreements that were reached this winter are slim.

If the BCS is serious about an appearance of fairness, it will levy a requirement of 12-team membership for all participating leagues. Take that another step and force each conference to stage a championship game, with the winner earning an automatic bid to a BCS bowl.

It wouldn't be the playoff most fans prefer, but it does provide a postseason model that more closely resembles basketball and baseball. The BCS would have to push its portfolio to at least six games (not to mention the adoption of some additional by-laws to ensure quality), but who would complain about the prospects of another $14 million?

Certainly not Tranghese.

Additional benefits would include a more even spread of revenue in Division I-A. That also goes without mentioning a guarantee that the labeling issues the BCS has produced in recent years would be eliminated, something for which Cowen and the Presidential Coalition of Athletics Reform fought hard over the past year.

"It will now be such that all 11 Division I-A conferences are BCS conferences," Cowen said. "The labeling won't just apply to just those six conferences.

"So, the branding will be inclusive of all conferences. But what's probably more important is that, because we have a more liberalized access rule and the governance now will be more representative of all the conferences, those things in and of themselves really begin to eliminate some of the branding issues. It doesn't eliminate all of them, obviously, but it begins to unify us more closely."

If the BCS doesn't take matters a step further, it will fail to fully mend the division it has created in college football.

Given the Big East's current status versus its prospects for the future, it sounds like Tranghese finally gets the picture.