A total game changer???

[jasonb56]

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7248953/bcs-proposes-only-handling-national-championship-game-sources-say

without automatic qualifiers, leagues are free to create there own deals with the bowls... only championship game to be under BCS control. Even that game will be shopped around to non-traditional sites (aka Jerry jones land)

IF true, could totally change everything...

[Joe]

Saw it in the paper this AM. That would really **** us over.

[BDYZR]

BE should probably have a conference call on this one

[Cow Pie]

If this occurs it would be the end of dozens of programs that have built themselves up around the BCS system's requirements, which include USF...

It would basically go back to the old system for the most part in which only the teams with the most fans or have the most $$ get to go to bowl games... also doesn't the BCS control the 6 game bowl eligibility requirement?

[JB]

This would really suck. This would pretty much keep the old status quo of the good-old boys club. Only traditional teams with large folllowings would be picked for the non-championship bowls. Any newer schools like USF would have a hard time ever gaining access. You could almost bet that all the bowls would be loaded with SEC and Big 10 teams primarily.

[TallyBull]

I asked Greg Auman about this possibility during his chat, and how it might impact the "West" division schools' current decisionmaking with respect to whether they should join the Big East. His response was that the Big East is better than the megaconference, so they'd still have incentive to join the Big East regardless. But I'm not so sure that's true if the AQ status goes away. If I'm Boise State or BYU, and we're in a non-AQ world, I'd rather keep all of my sports together in the same western conference.

What else could lure them? Maybe TV dollars, I guess, if the Big East's TV deal is that much better? But I think it's a big issue and it may be one reason why there's a pause in the action with respect to expansion. IMHO, it's not as clear a "slam dunk" than many people are making it out to be. Keep in mind that the timeline for many of these teams joining the Big East coincides with the end of the BCS contract, so it's at least possible that the same year these teams join the Big East (2013), ostensibly to take advantage of its AQ status, ALL of the conferences could lose their AQ status.

[macphisto]

I'll believe this when I see it. The BCS is a big cash cow for the big conferences and a conference stands to get two big payouts with two bids. I'm also not sure the TV contract for the other bowls will be as large, so the bowl payout for the Fiesta, Orange, etc might go down.

The B1G and PAC-12 would love this because they'd get locked into the Rose Bowl again and the Rose Bowl will have the huge payout. The one current AQ league that gets left out is the BE because of out lack of tie-in to one of those bowls.

[IncrediBULL]

You will see a huge anti-trust suit happen if this occurs....

[TallyBull]

Another issue is whether the Big East would even need these "western" partners if AQ is no longer in play. I suppose at that point we could stick with a 10-12 team eastern conference that includes teams like Temple and Memphis, whose football programs are average or below average, but whose basketball programs are strong, We would no longer need the AQ points that the Boise States and UHs of the world have to offer, which is what's forcing the Big East to go west in the first instance. There may be other reasons to go west (Texas market, recruiting, etc.), but it wouldn't appear that AQ would be one of them in that scenario.

[BullFan98]

Conspiracy theorists....is this another attempt by ESPN to mess with the BE? Great timing I would say.