Mountain West Conference Asking for an Automatic BCS Bid?

It looks like the Mountain West Conference is going to petition the Bowl Championship Series for an automatic bid into the system. Earlier today Mountain West officials said they will petition to the Bowl Championship Series for automatic qualification.

The MWC’s Board of Directors, including Hawaii president M.R.C. Greenwood, concluded two days of meetings today in Las Vegas. The MWC was expected to discuss possible expansion in the wake of the announced departures of Boise State and San Diego State to the Big East in 2013.

This has a direct affect on Hawaii Warrior football, as the Warriors will be a part of the Mountain West Conference beginning next year. The Mountain West has recently been talking about combining with Conference USA to become somewhat of a super-conference and possibly garner automatic bid into the BCS.

However, since the initial talk, several of the big name teams from both conferences have moved on to so called “greener pastures.” Boise State, TCU, Central Florida, Houston, SMU, San Diego State and possibly Air Force are all heading to the Big East.

So even with these marque names leaving the conference it seems that the officials at the Mountain West feel they have enough to not only place this request, but to possibly get the okay. According to what? The Mountain West said it “met the threshold to request an exemption by virtue of its performance during the recently completed four-year (2008-2011) evaluation period.”

This should be an interesting process. As much of a hater as I am of the BCS system, it hardly seems fair that any teams from the current Mountain West should get an “automatic berth” into the series. That being said, maybe this is the first steps that someone needs to take to ensure that wee have a more fair college football playoff system in the future, or at least have some sort of playoffs..