Columnist Ron Kantowski: MWC in the BCS? It may take a miracle

Friday, Aug. 22, 2003 | 9:36 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

At first, I was going to start this piece by saying the Mountain West Conference's chances of crashing the Bowl Championship Series when the current cartel drafts another bazillion dollar TV proposal in 2006 were slim and none.

But that was before watching the replay of the 1982 Cal-Stanford game on ESPN Classic a couple of nights ago. If it's possible to win on the last play of the game by throwing a dozen laterals and running over a marching band that took the field but refused to yield, then miracles do happen.

So I've amended the MWC's chances of getting a piece of lucrative American college football pie to slim and slimmer.

It's not that the MWC and the other Division I-A conferences that are on the outside of the BCS gold mine wistfully looking in don't deserve a pick and shovel. I mean, if you pay your dues, you should be entitled to come to the meetings, and for the NCAA to sit idly by while its aristocrats get richer at the expense of its peasants just doesn't seem right.

Or legal.

In fact, if I were the Mountain West, Mid-American Conference, Conference USA, Western Athletic Conference or the Sun Belt, I'd make sure that somebody like Johnnie Cochran or Judge Judy had lifetime complimentary season tickets. On the 50-yard line.

It may come to that. But for now, the MWC and the other outsiders -- I like to refer to them as Division I Lite -- will try to negotiate rather than sue their way in.

For the first time since the BCS was formed, there will be dialogue between the haves and have-nots, as a meeting of their presidents (Utah's Dr. Bernie Machen will represent the MWC) is set for Sept. 8 in Chicago. Whether that dialogue will be meaningful or not depends on what the BCS schools are willing to offer.

For now, the non-BCSers will settle for something modest -- like a second meeting.

Bob Burda, an associate MWC commissioner, said the outsiders don't want to begin negotiating until they learn what is on the table.

"If you go in saying 'This is what we want' then one of three things will probably happen," Burda said Thursday from MWC headquarters in Colorado Springs.

"You may get exactly what you asked for, which is probably the longest shot. Or they may be prepared to offer more, and then you shortchange yourself. The third thing that could happen is that we are so far apart that we don't have a chance, and they say there's no point of continuing.

"Probably one of our goals is to make sure there are follow-up discussions."

The reason behind this perceived window of opportunity is the defection of Miami and Virginia Tech from the Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference. If the Big East doesn't implode by 2005, it certainly will be less viable as a BCS member without the Hurricanes and Hokies, and don't think the MWC and the others don't know it.

But in that the BCS is all about money and was formed to exclude others from taking their share, why would it want to share the wealth? While I was never very good in math, when you split a pie six ways and top it with Notre Dame, you don't get as much as when you divide it by five.

That's the biggest strike against BCS expansion and/or revision. The second is that there's little public outcry for it. The lightning rod for the average fan is a college football playoff, not a bigger BCS. Barring a tournament, most fans would prefer spending New Year's Day -- and the first couple after it -- with Nebraska, Michigan and Florida State rather than Colorado State, Fresno State and TCU.

So that's why the little guys are trying to form an alliance with the least likely of suspects -- the college football media.

"If people in the media think the system is wrong, then they need to report it," Burda said. "The court of public opinion is very important."

The problem with that strategy is that most college football writers were college football fans first. It still miffs some of my cohorts east of the Mississippi that there's a National Championship cup in BYU's trophy case, and that happened in 1984.

That's why it might be wiser for the outsiders to seek some sort of compromise. As it stands, any Division I-A independent, or champion of the Mountain West, MAC, Conference USA, WAC or Sun Belt, can gain one of the two BCS at-large berths (Notre Dame has dibs on the other and the other six are reserved for the power conference teams) by ranking sixth or higher in the BCS.

With built-in poll and scheduling biases, that's darn near impossible. But it might be more attainable if say, the magic number for inclusion was nine wins and Top 10 in the BCS rankings, as it is for Notre Dame.

Another option being discussed in private is some type of play-in game which would produce an at-large team from one of the non-BCS conferences, which then could be promoted as a Cinderella entry, in the manner of all those No. 14 and 15 seeds that make the NCAA basketball tournament so intriguing.

My prediction is that the glass slipper will remain buried deep in the BCS closet. But as Burda said, it's a lot harder to look somebody in the eye and tell them 'no' than it is by e-mail or conference call.

Unless, of course, they see a minus side followed by a dollar sign when the Mountain West bats its baby blues.