A group of college presidents and chancellors from schools not affiliated with the member conferences of the Bowl Championship Series took its first public steps recently in hopes of changing the structure of postseason college football.
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| Tulane’s Scott Cowen leads the group. |
The group, which has named itself the Presidential Coalition for Athletics Reform, comprises 44 presidents from 52 non-BCS schools. Tulane University President Scott Cowen, the group's organizer, said that with the BCS contract expiring after the 2005 football season, presidents of non-BCS schools felt it was the ideal time to begin discussions on what the postseason would look like beyond 2005.
"I think our preference would be that the BCS system would go away completely," Cowen said.
The BCS system was put in place for the 1998 season to determine a national champion in Division I-A football while maintaining the bowl structure. The BCS comprises the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta and Orange bowl games. Those bowls have contracts with the ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-10 and Notre Dame.
Each BCS conference is guaranteed a berth to one of the four BCS games, which leaves two at-large slots available for any Division I-A team. No non-BCS school has participated in one of the games since the BCS' inception, and only three have appeared in the year-end BCS rankings (see chart).
