MWC seeks playoffs, calls system ‘unfair’

March 5, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Mountain West Conference wants to lead the fight for a major college football playoff.

The MWC presented the BCS with a proposal Wednesday to create an eight-team playoff system that would allow greater access to the national championship game to teams outside the six most powerful leagues.

Commissioner Craig Thompson and four university leaders from the MWC announced details on a conference call and the entire 21‚Ñ2-page proposal was posted on the league’s Web site.

“I will put this as bluntly as a I can,” said Tom Buchanan, University of Wyoming president and chairman of the MWC board of directors. “We all believe that change is needed. The current system is not fair and somebody needs to stand up and say that and ask for dialogue amongst all the parties involved.

“Our goal is to find a system that is best for college football.”

The next BCS meeting is scheduled for April in Pasadena, Calif.

“I would strongly suggest this will be a conversation topic,” Thompson said.

Thompson would not speculate how the proposal will be received, but the chances of it being met with anything other than a resounding ’No thank you’ from the commissioners of the six automatic qualifying conferences seems remote — at best.

“We have received the Mountain West proposal,” BCS coordinator and ACC commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. “Some of these ideas or similar ones have been addressed before in BCS meetings. We will make sure that the proposal has a full airing by the commissioners and presidents, and we will respond to the Mountain West at the conclusion of those discussions.”

The Bowl Championship Series last summer shot down a proposal brought by Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive that would have created a four-team playoff.

One of the reasons commissioners from the Big East, Big 12, Pac-10 and Big Ten gave for being against the so-called plus-one model Slive presented was a fear that any playoff system would inevitably expand.

Even in the SEC and Atlantic Coast Conference, which also supported a plus-one, there are no signs university presidents want an NFL-style playoff system.

Meanwhile, fans and many members of the media grow more vocal in support of a playoff each time the current BCS format, which only gives two teams a chance to win a national title in the postseason, fails to produce totally satisfying results.

Now, the Mountain West is vowing to be an advocate for those frustrated by the BCS.

“This is not a gesture on our part,” San Diego State University president Stephen Weber said. “There is a fundamental unfairness here that I think the whole country is aware of and somebody’s got to stand up and confront that unfairness.”

The conferences with automatic access to the five BCS games are the Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, ACC and Pac-10.