Almost every single post I have seen about a possible playoff or a revision to the BCS has always included the Rose Bowl. Allow me to be the first to leave it out in thinking outside the box. Why? Look no further than the Rose Bowl committee itself which has pretty much shown a strong distaste for being a BCS bowl. Instead, I propose making the Rose Bowl a second tier bowl, and I would have the Cotton Bowl replace the Rose Bowl in the BCS.
The Big Ten and the Pac 10 still send their champs to the BCS, only they won't be going to the Rose Bowl anymore.
My new BCS bowl lineup:
1. Sugar Bowl
2. Orange Bowl
3. Fiesta Bowl
4. Cotton Bowl
In addition, there is another tweak. Since ND shares bowls with the Big East, ND and the Big East can also share their BCS bowl. The Big East champ goes to the BCS if it is ranked higher than ND. If ND is ranked higher than the Big East champ, ND goes to the BCS.
The only teams that get autobids are teams that are ranked 1-12. Don't make this ranking, and you don't make the BCS.
I would have the BCS standings be an average of the AP, Coaches, and the Harris polls, with a two computer polls thrown in as well.
I would like to put SOS back in, but I'm not sure how to put it back in, without getting really goofy results (Texas beating Miami, Oh, which beat TCU, which beat Oklahoma, who beat Tennessee, etc.) Maybe a point system would work for SOS. (And these point values would not change as the season progresses, for better or worse.)

The Rose Bowl and the Pac-10 are hermetically sealed at the hip. Any thought otherwise is complete folly.

I would say that the Big 10 is also hermetically sealed, but for some reason I still have a wary eye towards them...

Remember the old Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance? Neither included the Pac-10 nor Big 10.

I think there IS a possibility that the Rose pulls out of the BCS... and takes the Pac-10 with it. If that does happen, does the Big 10 go along? I'm not so sure that the numerous ties they've made with the SEC in several bowl games doesn't influence them to depart the Rose Bowl tie-in. Of course, "I'm not so sure" are important words in this discussion.

Now let me get this straight....

You would rather have rankings define who's in and who's out, rather than performance on the field....

So you would rather fill up the BCS with a bunch of runners-up, rather than conference champions (perhaps undefeated, from less-media intensive conferences) ?

Well if the rankings were somehow accurate, I could perhaps buy your argument. However, last year we saw how easily the rankings could be manipulated.
The coach of Texas whines and "POOF !" his team leaps over a Cal team that won it's final game (on the road against a tough Southern Miss team, if I recall correctly).

The pollsters are terrible. Even if they have decent gut-instincts, they are prone to be blown by the winds of hype. And their bias is CLEARLY toward the big 5 conferences, as it is less convenient to watch the "lesser" conferences play (unlike the NFL Scouts).
If pollsters were so good, how could they have been so wrong about Penn State earlier this season ? Now they are #4, early on they were un-ranked !

Look at West Virginia right now. One loss, a close game vs. Virginia Tech (another one-loss team). Why should they be ranked FAR BELOW Miami, who also lost a game. here's why... it's fashionable to bash the Big East this year.

Lets decide it on the field, not in the polls. If you didn't win your conference championship, you have no claim to the National Championship. PERIOD ! So quit crying.

I rest my case.

Makes sense.

To answer dave from my paradigm... a wise Rose Bowl staff would see the folly of the BCS and get out.

Since I'm too realistic to see a playoff coming anytime soon, it's better to know that the NC is indeed as mythical as we used to believe it was.

My guess is that the Rose Bowl will like the upcoming format of having 4 BCS bowls plus the "national championship" game. In that scenario the Rose Bowl could return to its roots in a Pac10 vs Big10 game, and additionally host another big game every four years.

Why is the Big10 connected to the Rose Bowl? Does anyone happen to know why this conference has a history of shipping its champion off thousands of miles from home? I guess its not that big of a deal today, but 50-75 years ago, that would have been a seriously long and expensive trip.

I'm not naive, I just dis-like polls, for the same reason I dis-like "reality" shows like "Survivor" - it's based on a popularity contest which is influenced by hype and personal biases. And what humans don't have personal biases ? I know I do....

I looked up the Wikipedia listing of Rose Bowl participants. The Pac 10 (or Pac 8) tie-in goes back until at least the 1910s.... The Big Ten has regularly gone since Illinois played in the Jan 1, 1947. Prior to that, the other representative was "at large" with Pitt and Alabama making multiple appearances.

I suppose the visiting team likely travelled to Pasadena by rail until maybe the early 1960s, when it became more common to charter a plane. So the trip took several days.... and probably there was not a huge contingent of travelling alumni fans.... mostly the team and the band, I should think.

I'm not saying that the Rose Bowl will depart from the Pac 10. What I am saying that is that the Pac 10 will no longer be sending its champion to the Rose Bowl and instead will be sending its champion to the Cotton, Sugar, Orange, or Fiesta.

No, no, no, no, no.

The Cotton, Sugar, and Orange don't want the Pac-10 anyway.

The Pac-10 conference needs the Rose Bowl. Vice versa. So much back-scratching over time that they are inexorably linked. Part of that, to be sure, is from drawing the Big 10 champion.

Sending the Pac-10 champion elsewhere will only infuriate Pac-10 fans. The Pac-10 would sooner leave the BCS than the Rose Bowl. This is a tradition deeper than any "Thingy-tail" party or ANYTHING the SEC has ever cooked up.

Pounder, don't forget I still like the Pac 10 too. However, I can see several shortcomings of the BCS, and the Rose Bowl's arrogance is beginning to get to me. If the Rose Bowl was more willing to invite teams from other conferences to play in it, I wouldn't have second thoughts about leaving the Rose Bowl in the BCS and as the home for the Pac 10 champion. However, due to the Rose Bowl's stance, I do have second thoughts. Yes, I really that Rose Bowl is a very old tradition. But you are wrong in that it is older than or deeper than ANYTHING the SEC has ever cooked up. The oldest rivalry in the South is at least old as the Rose Bowl if not older. And FYI, it is not Alabama-Auburn. And that game goes very deep, my West Coast acquaintance and fellow Duck fan. There are a lot of strong emotions about that game. The Sugar Bowl is the next oldest thing for the SEC, but it is a good 30 years younger than the Rose Bowl. The Pac 10 needs to get another conference besides the Big Ten to play in bowls and/or out of conference play if nothing else but to increase the Pac 10's exposure. Arizona State playing LSU was a nice continuation of the Pac 10 playing the SEC, and I wish those matchups would continue. True, Arkansas got massacred by Southern Cal. But that just went to show just how good USC truly is. And the SEC is trying to get in on a similar deal that the Big Ten and the Pac 10 have on being an academic alliance in addition to being bowl partners. Right now, the SEC itself is only unified through athletics. However, that will change and it will be unified by its academics as well. I would not be surprised to see the SEC and the ACC strike up a deal very similar to the Big Ten and the Pac 10 have in the near future, but the SEC and the ACC need to unify their own leagues first before that (an academic union between the two conferences) is to take place.

So you want the SEC to be involved with the Rose Bowl I take it. But the Rose Bowl has been more acceptive lately, well mainly just the Big 12 have got the bid if either PAC-10 or Big Ten were in the championship game.

Just in - Rose Bowl to eliminate the P-10 and the B10. Replacements will be the BIG EAST and the MWC on an annual basis. Just kidding guys ;D ;D :D :D 8-) 8-).

CONGRATULATIONS JOE PATERNO ON YOUR B-10 BCS BOWL. Too bad that you didn't go undefeated and might have a shot at the championship game at the Rose Bowl when the season smoke clears. Too bad that the 4+1 is not in affect this year and that you would play there this year anyway as the B-10 representative. GET'M AGAIN NEXT YEAR JOE and the
NITTANY LIONS. :) ;) :D ;D 8-)

DnD, you speak from desire, I speak from knowledge, and we're just on different planes / paradigms / what have you.

Simply stated, AS LONG AS THERE ARE BOWL GAMES, the Pac-10 needs the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl needs the Pac-10.

You wanting the Pac-10 to branch out misses the point. Right now, there are legions of Duck fans who want Tom Hansen's scalp because the Holiday Bowl will likely be the Ducks vs Colorado. Problem is that these fans miss the point. The Pac-10 would LOVE a better arrangement. NO BOWL EAST OF THE PECOS WANTS TO HOST THE PAC-10.

Why invite a Pac-10 school (with the possible exception of Oregon, who still only brought 17,000 to the Cotton Bowl almost 10 years ago) when you can invite an SEC school or a Big 10 school and get 30,000 per school?

Out here, travel is a way of life... the travel complaints of Big East fans regarding Miami- and now South Florida- amuse us when it comes to Arizona v Washington State and the like. Thing is, it adds up... and too many of us out here kind of like the idea of being just a couple hours from warmth, a couple hours from the ocean, and a couple hours from skiing. Why go East? Why save the money to go East? As long as the system rewards stuff other than merit, that's what you're going to get.

Pounder, you're forgetting a few conferences. Try the ACC and the Big 12. What's really sad is that even the Big 12 has a bowl tie-in in Florida, and the Pac 10 does not. However, the real problem lies in the size of the fan base of the Pac 10 vs the SEC, the Big 10, ACC, and the Big 12. Most SEC schools have a stadium size of 80,000 or more. In the Pac 10, only USC and Arizona State have this size of stadium. The SEC teams sell out those seats too. I would wager the Big Ten has about the same size stadium of the SEC or slightly less. Big 12 would be about the same size, although I can definitely think of some teams with some pretty small stadiums. About half of the ACC stadiums would fit in this category; the other half are more similar to the Pac 10 in size. What stadium size have to do with the price of rice in China? Well, stadium size is a good indicator as to the size of a fan base that a team has.