Question of the day: What realistic changes would you like to see come out of the BCS meetings this week?

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Reporters from around the Tribune family tackle the question of the day, then you get a chance to chime in and tell them why they are wrong.

Chris Dufresne, Los Angeles Times

Despite the buzz about expansion, don’t be shocked if nothing gets resolved at this week’s BCS meetings in Phoenix/Scottsdale. ‘News’ is the last thing the commissioners want to unleash. The only reason journalists started showing up at these spring flings came as a result of yearly haywire results in the BCS standings that forced the commissioners to annually tweak the formula. Twelve years later, the formula appears solidly, and fantastically, unstable. Two years ago, we all rushed to Florida to hear the commissioners reject a modified playoff plan. Yipee. Mostly, the BCS meetings amount to boring reports about revenue distribution, followed by shrimp wrapped in bacon by the pool. Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany is in his ‘silent mode’ and is unlikely to engage the media regarding his Potsdam-like plans to re-draw the map of college football. That will come later, without writers standing outside the door, although we’re going to do our best to root out the unrest. The playoff issue is dead, for now, and ESPN’s takeover of the broadcast package preserves the status quo for the next four years.
So what CAN happen at the BCS meetings? Here’s something: With USC’s football future now resting in front of the NCAA Infractions committee, this might be a good time for the BCS to formulate a plan to deal with a team possibly having used an ineligible player in a BCS title victory. That player might be Reggie Bush, and the season was 2004, when USC defeated Oklahoma, 55-19, in the Orange Bowl. There is presently, far as we know, no BCS mechanism to deal with this. The BCS runs college football, not the NCAA, so there is no NCAA title for the NCAA to possibly strip. USC won the BCS trophy, which is awarded by the USA Today coaches’ poll. Can USA Today revoke USC’s title? USC also won the Associated Press trophy in 2004, which could lead to AP breaking news: The AP is reporting today that it is stripping USC of its national title, according to AP sources.
The BCS basically decided years ago not to deal with the Bush scenario until it had to, and soon it may have to. Even if USC and Bush are cleared of wrongdoing, there is always going to be a next time, so now might be a good time to plan for it.

Andrea Adelson, Orlando Sentinel

What change comes out of the BCS meetings? How about a playoff? Oh wait, the word realistic is in the question. Scrap that.

Though it is not a topic on the official agenda, conference expansion is all that matters. Though it is unrealistic to expect the entire expansion issue to be decided among the conference commissioners in Scottsdale, Ariz., Big Ten honcho Jim Delany could throw down the gauntlet and inform everybody his league plans on growing. What happens with the Big Ten will impact every other conference in America.

This is just the beginning of the process. Not much will be different when the meetings end, simply because the Big Ten still must meet with its constituents, decide on a final plan and reel in its future teams before anything can be done. But I do expect the Big Ten to formally tell conference commissioners their teams could be poached. Then the change will really begin.