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http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2004-12-17-bcs-title-committee_x.htm
Embroiled again in year-end controversy, college football's Bowl Championship Series is weighing changes in its team selection process — including the option of an NCAA basketball tournament-type committee to set its No. 1-vs.-2 national title game.
The major-conference commissioners who run the BCS have twice examined and rejected the committee concept but will reconsider it in the coming months, Big 12 Commissioner and BCS coordinator Kevin Weiberg said Thursday.
Another option is tweaking the current selection process, principally the two major polls that carry two-thirds weight in the BCS' team standings. Weiberg said the BCS may insist the USA TODAY/ESPN coaches' and Associated Press media polls not start until sometime in October and the coaches make their final regular-season ballots public.
Growing discomfort with the polls, the coaches' in particular, is fueling the selection-committee sentiment. Both polls start before the season, placing underestimated teams at a disadvantage. Ranked low or not at all, they have further to climb. The coaches have drawn additional fire for keeping their ballots secret.
"I'm not sure creating a committee would necessarily do away with controversy," Weiberg said. "But there might be other benefits (like) taking out some of the limitations of the current polling system. The polls then could be used more as advisory information."
The AP has declined previous suggestions to start its poll later. The coaches have voted twice in the past year against disclosing their ballots. Should one or both stick to those positions, Weiberg and other commissioners said the BCS could turn to a selection committee of undetermined size and makeup.
Weiberg said he would not view the committee approach as a first option. The Big East's Mike Tranghese is a proponent, and the Atlantic Coast's John Swofford said the concept has merit. The Pacific-10's Tom Hansen said the BCS must re-examine all options.
The commissioners will meet during the NCAA's annual convention next month in Dallas but wouldn't make any final decisions until April.
Computer ratings also are folded into the BCS' composite standings, and the final 1-2 teams automatically advance to the title game. Unbeatens Southern California and Oklahoma will play for this season's championship Jan. 4 in the FedEx Orange Bowl.
While they're the nation's top two teams by a consensus of the polls and BCS computer ratings, the BCS drew some fire because of the exclusion of unbeaten Auburn. The Tigers landed in the Nokia Sugar Bowl.
Where a selection committee would make that a more subjective process, it wouldn't address another controversy: Texas automatically qualifying for a big-money BCS berth, nudging out California. Despite Cal's regular-season-ending, 26-16 victory at Southern Mississippi, Texas gained points in the polls and pulled ahead of the Bears in the BCS standings. That issue, however, most likely will be resolved when the BCS enters a new contractual stage in 2006. It will add a fifth game and two more berths.
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