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Cowen: Frogs' season won't get BCS off hook
From Associated Press and Staff Reports
Even if Texas Christian cracks the system's code and makes it into a
lucrative Bowl Championship Series game, the leader of the coalition against
the BCS still believes the system needs big changes.
TCU's success has altered the issues heading into a meeting Sunday in New
Orleans that will help determine the next system for college football's
postseason.
If the Horned Frogs (9-0) win their final three games and make it to a BCS
bowl, the leaders of the six big conferences will argue that the system is
truly open for any school no matter its conference.
Tulane president Scott Cowen, the leader of the Coalition for Athletics
Reform, said it would be an aberration.
"I've felt all along that if TCU is in or out doesn't change the fundamental
issue regarding access," Cowen said Thursday.
"It's one team in six years when there's a unique confluence of
circumstances where TCU went undefeated and almost everybody else had
multiple losses. That doesn't mean the system worked."
The two sides met in September in Chicago and are expected to exchange ideas
Sunday in a meeting among university presidents from the 11 Division I-A
conferences and NCAA president Myles Brand.
"There are some who believe we're not that far apart," said Oregon president
Dave Frohnmayer, a member of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee. "We
have to see what develops. I don't know what concrete options might emerge."
The current BCS contract expires after the 2006 bowls and negotiations will
begin next year on a new system. The hope from both sides is that there is
enough common ground to eventually reach an agreement without intervention
from Congress or the courts.
"Each side will give examples of structural changes for postseason play and
see if there's any commonality of interest," Cowen said. "If there is, we'll
spend a lot of time in there putting some things together."
Created in 1998 by the six most powerful conferences, the BCS guarantees the
champions of those leagues � the Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and
Pac-10 � will play in one of the four most lucrative postseason bowl games,
leaving only two at-large berths.
One of those bowls pits the top two teams in the BCS standings in a
championship game, which will be the Sugar Bowl this season. The Orange,
Fiesta and Rose bowls host the other games.
Smaller schools complain that the BCS makes it impossible for them to win
the national championship and puts them at a financial and recruiting
disadvantage.
The BCS bowls generate more than $110 million a year for the big
conferences. The BCS gives about $6 million a year to smaller conferences.
In the 20 years before the BCS started, only one school other than
independent Notre Dame that's not currently in the six conferences played in
one of those four bowls. ALouisville defeated Alabama in the 1990 Fiesta
Bowl to finish 10-1-1.
Brigham Young also departed from the old script in 1984. BYU steamrolled to
a perfect 13-0 record to win the national championship � at least in the
eyes of the voters in the AP and UPI polls � though the
Cougars' crowning win over Michigan
did not come in one of today's BCS bowls, but in the Holiday Bowl in San
Diego.
TCU, one of two undefeated teams in Division I-A, would be guaranteed a bid
if it finishes in the top six of the BCS standings. The Horned Frogs were
sixth this week.
"If TCU continues to win throughout the course of the season, no doubt they
will be well-placed," Frohnmayer said.
While the BCS conferences have said there won't be an NFL-style playoff,
there are other possibilities that could work.
A game could be added to the BCS format, which would make room for more
conferences. Also, the top two teams after the bowls could play for the
championship.
"That kind of model has the potential to work," Cowen said.
There would be many details that would need to be worked out in that plan,
including finding bowls and television partners that would pay large sums of
money for games involving less-prominent programs; figuring out how the
teams for the mini-playoff would be chosen after the bowls; and determining
which conferences would have automatic bids.
"We don't want to get very excited about any options," Frohnmayer said.
"Each has a downside. There's the possibility that additional games are not
revenue gainers but revenue losers. We're trying to figure out whether any
change to the system is actually value added."
There is also a possibility of staging one or two play-in games among the
smaller conferences to determine which schools play in the biggest bowls.
"There are various methods or ideas about how to play into the BCS group,"
WAC commissioner Karl Benson said. "The best method is to have automatic
access for all conferences. I know that will not be the outcome of the
negotiations going on now. We're hoping that the access become fairer and
more reasonable."
�2003 The Associated Press. Bonesville.net contributed to this report. All rights reserved.
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02.23.07 11:02 AM
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