Mountain West Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson yesterday said that the conference “soon plans to contact members of other conferences to see if they are interested in supporting an alternative postseason playoff format for major college football" after ’14, according to Brent Schrotenboer of the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE. Thompson indicated that he, along with league presidents and ADs, “will informally engage their counterparts in other non-power conferences to see if there’s enough support to put forth a postseason proposal different from the current, controversial” BCS format. Thompson said that league members will contact their counterparts to ask, "Are you comfortable with the current system, or do you want to be engaged in a change system?” The BCS contract runs through ’14, and Thompson noted that this “initiative would have to take place in the next six to eight months, in time to possibly present a BCS alternative, such as a playoff, when new television rights contract talks are expected to pick up steam concerning college football's postseason after 2014." Schrotenboer notes in '09, the MWC "proposed an eight-team playoff that was rejected by the presidents of the BCS." Thompson said, “We introduced a playoff in ’09, and we were the only ones who like it. If there is ever going to be a change in the near future, six to eight months out will be the conversation over the next television cycle of the BCS" (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 6/8).
STAY FOR A WHILE: The UNION-TRIBUNE's Schrotenboer reports Thompson's contract with the MWC "has been extended through June 2015, as approved this week" by the conference BOD. Thompson, whose contract was set to expire in '12, is the "first and only commissioner in the league's history and is entering his 13th year on the job." The MWC also announced that member schools "will now face financial penalties for leaving the conference -- a move that could help strengthen the league's future" (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 6/8).
