Phoenix – As the balance of football power in the Big 12 Conference continues to tilt toward the South Division, more South coaches are squawking about punting the division format.
Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg, who doubles as the Bowl Championship Series coordinator, didn’t kill the argument as the annual BCS meetings ended Wednesday.He said it shouldn’t be called a power play by the South.
“I’m sure that’s what members of our conference will first think about it when they hear this idea. But if you really look at the nine-year competitive history, it really has gone back and forth,” Weiberg said. “You have to be real careful about taking the competitive results of the moment and using that as a basis to determine things.”
Last year, the South Division went 16-3 against the North, with all three North victories coming against Baylor. Colorado and Iowa State tied for the North Division title at 4-4, and CU was blasted by Oklahoma 42-3 in the Big 12 title game in Kansas City, Mo.
The year before, the South went 12-7 against the North.
Predictably, coaches such as Texas’ Mack Brown favor eliminating the two divisions and going with one 12-team league, similar to other conference sports, with the top two teams going to the title game.
Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione went so far as to tell The Dallas Morning News he would like to see the regular-season champion host the conference championship game. Weiberg nixed that idea, citing the need to plan around the host site for things such as hotels and to have the event at a large stadium.
He also expressed concern about dropping a divisional setup without all teams playing each other. Under the current scheduling, each Big 12 team plays only three teams from the other division.
“These are not the kinds of things as a conference commissioner that you want to have decided by 7-5 votes,” Weiberg said. “You want more consensus. You want a super majority support for a major format change.”
As the BCS meetings broke up, Weiberg said the biggest achievement was the goal of finding a new poll of independent voters by June.
In other business, the BCS changed Notre Dame’s automatic entry into the BCS’ four-bowl format. Starting in 2006, the Irish must finish in the top eight and would earn the normal at-large share of $4.5 million. If they don’t qualify, the Irish would make the $1 million awarded each school in all six BCS conferences.
With no conference affiliation, Notre Dame currently needs to finish in the top six of the BCS rankings and earns an entire conference share of more than $14 million if it makes it. Notre Dame gets nothing if it doesn’t qualify.
John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
