Don’t look for Utah’s seismic statement in its Sugar Bowl romp over Alabama to change the Bowl Championship Series automatic qualifying lineup anytime soon.
“I don’t anticipate movement,” Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson said Monday from his Colorado Springs office. “The BCS is a series of legal contracts. There are the four bowls, the television networks. Just because Utah won the Sugar Bowl, I don’t anticipate they are going to say, ‘All right, the Mountain West gets an automatic bid, and let’s change the whole structure.’ ”
The BCS structure has automatic conference bids determined by four-year “windows” of conference performance based on the ranking of the conference champion, the number of top-25 teams at the end of the regular season and conference rankings.
This was the first year of the second window.
“We have to prove ourselves again in 2009,” Thompson said.
The MWC showed well this season, with likely two top-10 finishers in Utah and TCU and the best record against automatic qualifying leagues (10-6) of any conference in the country. Its 22-12 (.647 percent) record vs. Football Bowl Subdivision opponents ranked fifth, ahead of the Big Ten and Pac-10. Utah was the lone unbeaten FBS team in 2008.
The subject of automatic bids will be discussed in April when commissioners of the FBS conferences meet.
“We’re trying to get to the next progressive step in the cycle,” Thompson said of getting an automatic bid for the combined MWC, Western Athletic, Conference USA and Sun Belt.
The BCS issue is more than conference pride. It’s all about money. The league will gross an estimated $10 million from the Sugar Bowl, Thompson said, with $4 million going to Utah and “somewhere north of $600,000” for each of the other eight schools.
Natalie Meisler: 303-954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com
