SALT LAKE CITY — A week after Utah joined the Pac-10 and nationwide speculation of BCS super conferences surged, Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham gave his prediction of the future of college football.
“This is just phase one of conference expansion,” Whittingham said. “I don’t see it going anywhere other than that direction. There will be super conferences not inside three years and not outside 10 years.”
At the Associated Press Sports Editors convention in Salt Lake City, Whittingham, BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe and Utah attorney general Mark Shurtleff shared their views of a college football playoff system and the BCS as it pertains to Utah and BYU.
Holmoe, a former BYU football teammate of Whittingham, recalled playing in the Holiday Bowl, the only game BYU “had access to.” After playing in the NFL and working eight years in the Pac-10, he noticed how little attention the Western Athletic Conference — BYU and Utah’s previous league before the Mountain West — received. It was then that he had to start fighting for his alma mater and for the opportunity to gain access. His stance hasn’t changed as athletic director.
“I don’t have all the answers right now because a week ago, things changed,” Holmoe said. “Access is very important to us. We’ll fight until we feel it’s right.”
Whittingham said the national championship being awarded instead of won is his biggest frustration with the BCS. His prime example was the undefeated 2009 Sugar Bowl champion Utes, who finished second in the final AP poll, a situation just as controversial as the 1984 national champion BYU football team, he said.
“There’s no reason why we can’t get a playoff system in place,” Whittingham said. “To do everything right and be perfect and not win, that’s not right.”
Shurtleff has taken frustration a step further with an antitrust case against the BCS. He references the NCAA’s commitment to “assure fairer competition” among student-athletes as written in its constitution and how the BCS has strayed from that standard. He is hoping for cooperation from the U.S. Department of Justice in his lawsuit and would prefer the BCS to take an approach of, “We’ll fix it. Don’t sue us.”
“People will question my motives,” Shurtleff said. “It’s not about bragging rights or what’s best for your school. It’s [about] what’s best for college sports.”
The three men also gave their opinions on concerns about a football playoff system, ranging from nationwide pressures and money motives to effects of playoff games on educational missions of universities. Regardless of the direction college football takes after having bowl games for nearly a century, they agreed it won’t satisfy everyone involved and that the possibility for super conferences is still very strong.
“I can guarantee you somebody’s going to complain always,” Holmoe said. “It’s very simple and yet its very complex.”
How will the Utah-BYU game be affected by conference realignment and BCS changes? That, too, is yet to be determined.
