BCS puts NCAA nice guy in bad spot

What a fate for Bill Hancock. One of the nicest and most respected men in NCAA history now holds one of its most despised positions.

You know, the one just under that of spin-control manager for Southern California football coach Lane Kiffin.

Friends warned Hancock not to take the job in November. They knew what incredibly volatile reactions three little letters can produce, that most feel BCS is described most accurately without the C.

“I understand that because it’s sports and all, fans want what is best for their teams,” Hancock said. “Fans are not charged with seeing the big picture. I get that.”

Hancock is like Oregon State coach Mike Riley without the headset, a man who you could search far and wide across this country and not find a person who knows him and doesn’t think him a wonderful person.

He is also the first permanent executive director of the Bowl Championship Series, in charge of trying to convince the masses that a system that paints itself as a fair and transparent method for deciding college football’s annual national champion really isn’t the greedy and unscrupulous cartel many think.

I still side on the cartel part of things.

Hand it to the BCS bosses, though. If there is a soul alive that even the nonautomatic qualifier conferences could work with and communicate their issues and engage in productive dialogue, it’s the man who ran the NCAA basketball tournament for 13 years.

Hancock was among those speaking at the MAACO Las Vegas Bowl Fall Kickoff Luncheon here this week, where a save-the-bowl-system propaganda platform was richer than the football-sized chocolate cake they called dessert.

No one would have blinked had UNLV coach Bobby Hauck and former Washington quarterback-turned-ESPN-analyst Brock Huard simply hugged it out after each finished their we-must-keep-the-bowl-games-or-risk-a-cruel-and-painful-death speeches.

Hancock is also big on the bowls, he of the opinion that a playoff system would destroy the postseason games we have come to identify by such names as Chick-fil-A and Outback and Papajohns.com, that the BCS is not rigged to exclude from its championship game teams from nonautomatic leagues.

I think rigged is too strong a word.

I just don’t believe an undefeated Boise State or Texas Christian this season will play in the BCS championship under the current system.

And if either does, you might not be able to blink before a playoff is created.

Never has there been a more blatant example of perception being everything than how BCS rankings transpire.

Already, we are hearing how Boise State’s victory against Virginia Tech shouldn’t be held in such high regard following the Hokies’ loss to James Madison six days later. Already, the whispers of a weak Western Athletic Conference and how that should affect Boise State’s placement in the BCS standings are growing loud and it’s not even October.

Four teams in a playoff. Six. Eight. It’s debatable.

Bowls needn’t perish because someone finally realizes there is a fairer way to decide which teams play in the title game than polls in which coaches (a majority of whom come from automatic qualifying BCS leagues) will again no longer make their votes public is part of the equation.

We put men into space and have discovered cures for some of the most atrocious diseases. It’s a safe bet we can identify the top four teams at season’s end each year and allow them to decide the title.

Hancock says there is no perfect system, so then why not discover a better one? I don’t want to hear about how a fifth- or sixth-rated team might feel when left out. It’s not near as unjust as an undefeated one.

Just ask Boise State, Utah, Auburn, Hawaii and TCU. Ask perfect teams from the past that never received an opportunity to play in the biggest game.

“There are people who have their minds made up and don’t want to hear what we are saying, and that’s OK,” Hancock said. “People love their brackets. I love my bracket. I was director of the Final Four a long time, and the bracket was my heart. The e-mails and hate phone calls we got from teams that were left out of the (NCAA Tournament) would blow your mind. It’s the same in this.

“But we don’t have a bracket. We have a system that rewards 70 teams at the end of the year, and there are a lot of great things to be said for that … It took me about 90 seconds to accept this job. I always said that if I could be the director of the football championship, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

Bill Hancock is one of the all-time good guys.

Always has been.

I don’t agree with him on this, with the system he must now promote and defend.

I don’t agree that an undefeated Boise State or TCU has a prayer of being in that game this year. Not a prayer.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618.