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NEW YORK — Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany says he would support the elimination of automatic bids to the Bowl Championship Series as long as the teams from his league get to play in the Rose Bowl.
But if college football’s leaders want to turn the BCS into a four-team playoff, Delany plans to push back. And Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick would be on Delany’s side of the debate.
Delany was at the Intercollegiate Athletics Forum on Thursday, part of a panel discussion with Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford, Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky and Mountain West Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson.
The commissioners, university presidents and athletic directors who control the BCS are in the early stages of determining the future of major college football’s controversial postseason system.
Among the many possible changes is eliminating automatic bids to the highest-paying bowl games and having the BCS set only the matchup for the No. 1 vs. No. 2 national championship game. The other bowl games would be free to make deals with whatever schools and leagues they would like, much the way it was before the BCS.
Banowsky said automatic-bid status had become divisive. C-USA, which does not have an automatic bid, just lost three members — SMU, Houston and UCF — to the Big East, one of six conferences that has an automatic bid through the 2013 season. Thompson’s league, which also is a non-AQ conference, is losing Boise State and San Diego State to the Big East.
“I feel strongly that it has been a negative driver from our perspective,” Banowsky said. “I hope that as we evolve the BCS we do it in a way that can create a more happy BCS without creating these class systems. I think it’s possible to do it, create a competitive format that requires teams to be competitive teams in order to participate and rewards the teams that are competitive.”