BCS bowl system is unfair, Young testifies

WASHINGTON — Former quarterback Steve Young told Congress Thursday that his alma mater, Brigham Young University, has virtually no chance for a future national football championship — and it has nothing to do with the quality of the team.

He said BYU and any team outside the six elite conferences in the Bowl Championship Series alliance have no true shot at a title because BCS rules and poll systems are designed to make its rich schools richer, and less-elite schools poorer.

"Division I-A football is the only sport within the NCAA structure where student-athletes have no equal access to winning a national championship," Young told the House Judiciary Committee.

He said he would prefer a playoff system to determine champions — which the NCAA uses in all other sports, and even in football in divisions I-AA, II and III.

The hearing came as BCS and non-BCS university presidents are scheduled to meet next week in Chicago about whether the current system denies access for schools from smaller conferences and how to improve the system.

The BCS was formed five years ago by six elite conferences — the Southeastern, Big 12, Big East, Pacific-10, Big Ten and Atlantic Coast — to help arrange a national championship game between the top two ranked Division I-A schools each year. That game is rotated among the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange bowls.

In the system, six of the eight available slots in those four BCS bowls each year go to champions of the six BCS conferences. The two remaining slots may go to other BCS schools, or to an outside school if they are ranked in the top six nationally in the BCS system that combines several polls and rankings of schedule strength.

However, Tulane University President Scott S. Cowen — who testified that his school has considered pushing an anti-trust lawsuit against the BCS — said BCS rating systems are slanted to ensure that only BCS conference teams will be chosen. No outside school has ever yet been chosen for any of its bowls in its five-year existence.

"A careful analysis of the components of this ranking system (by BCS schools) as well as the overall rules for BCS eligibility make it virtually impossible for a non-BCS school to ever qualify for a BCS bowl, much less the national championship," he said. For example, his Tulane team went 11-0 in 1998 and received no BCS bid.

Young, who is now an analyst for ESPN, said fellow sportswriters who vote in polls have told him that many do not bother to vote for non-BCS teams because they have no chance to win anyway.