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Bill Hancock May Have Spilled The Beans On BCS Qualification

by Jeremy Mauss • Jan 25, 2010 9:35 PM EST

In every interview that has discussed what it takes for BCS qualification by a conference, it has always come down to three criteria: 1. The final BCS ranking of the league's highest-ranked team; 2. The number of teams the conference has in the Top 25 of the final BCS standings; and 3. The final regular-season rankings of every team in the league by the six BCS computers.

The BCS has repeatedly said that they will not release how each of the three are weighed, which has been the company line, even with the most recent quotes from executive director Bill Hancock when asked which was the most important.

"That's more detail than I'm allowed to divulge."

However, back in November, Bill Hancock did an interview with SB Nation's own Mountain West Connection where he gave this answer to the following question:

Q: There are three rules listed for determining AQ status. Is each rule given an equal weight? If, not which categories are worth more?

A: All are the same weight.

It seems unlikely that Bill Hancock did not fully understand the question since it is pretty straight forward, and the criteria to determine who gains an auto bid has always been the same three requirements. He could have thought that he was granting an interview to a small site and gave an answer to appease the pro Mountain West crowd. Or could it have been a slip of the tongue that resulted in the truth? If so then the Mountain West looks to be on their way to gaining an automatic BCS bid.

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Comments

BCS Precedent

Looking at the BCS formula and the revenue sharing of the six present automatic qualifying conferences a paradigm of equal weight appears to rul inside the BCS.

The three criteria listed are not scaled such that an average provides useful results, so some form of scaling must be used. It is this scaling that is not revealed.

I am certain that the aim of this scaling is to give equal weight to the three components, but I can’t prove this. The most likely process the BCS would use would be to rank the conferences by each criteria and treat this like a three component poll. An average of 6 or better would then warrant a BCS automatic qualification.

Bill Hancock also recently gave hope this may become more transparent:

Hancock said the BCS has talked about making that process more transparent.

“I think there is some sense now that it is time to be a little bit more open about that,” he said. “It’s all objective, based on the data.”

The soonest this could happen would be in the BCS annual meeting in April.

BCS Evolution -- Punctuating the Equilibrium - twitter

by Ben Prather on Jan 27, 2010 2:53 PM EST reply actions