Hokies AD Jim Weaver favors a plus-one BCS model

With the Bowl Championship Series on the precipice of change amid proposals for an overhaul to college football's postseason, Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver said Friday that he still prefers a plus-one model.

The format, which Hokies head coach Frank Beamer has been on record as being in favor of, would essentially be a four-team playoff, with the No. 1 and 4 seeds and No. 2 and No. 3 seeds playing in the semifinals.

Unlike the proposal just getting off the ground in the Big Ten that would have the semifinals played at on-campus sites, Weaver prefers a model that uses the BCS bowls as semifinal sites. The national championship game would be played two weeks later to allow teams time to "recover and travel."

Follow me on Twitter.

Why does he favor that model?

"Because I don’t want to play at Michigan in two feet of snow eventually," Weaver said. "That’s not what we’re after. We’re not trying to deal with the elements. We’re trying to have a good environment. An environment like that it’s going to be difficult to sell tickets potentially. I think that’s just my feeling. I think it ought to be on a neutral site."

It seems inevitable that the current BCS model, which is under contract through the 2013-'14 bowl season, will include sweeping changes, with automatic qualifier status probably going away and other tweaks. But the highest priority, at least to fans of college football, seems to be in coming up with a better way of deciding the national champion, especially after a rematch decided the 2012 BCS title between two SEC teams -- Alabama and LSU -- not only from the same conference but the same division.

In addition to the proposal gaining steam in the Big Ten, Arizona State president Michael Crow has suggested an eight-team playoff that includes the eight highest-ranked champions of the 11 Football Bowl Subdivision conferences.

Weaver thinks that's too many teams, adding that most presidents have vetoed that approach in the past.

"One of the reasons that that is not viable in my opinion is that every school has a different academic calendar," he said. "Some people finish up finals before the holidays. Some don’t finish until after the holidays. And therefore there is not equality in the preparation for the games."

Under a plus-one model, Virginia Tech would have been involved in the playoff bracket twice, in the 1999-2000 season, when it would have been the No. 2 seed, and the 2007-08 season, when it would have been the No. 3 seed.

In an eight-team playoff, the Hokies, as league champions, would have been involved five times -- 2000, '05, '08, '09 and '11.

---

Weaver didn't think the ACC's decision to play nine conference games once Pittsburgh and Syracuse join the league will affect the Hokies' future scheduling much. Virginia Tech has non-conference games already scheduled with Pitt in '12 and '13 that can easily be switched to league games, since the two will be in the same division.

The only conflict will come in 2014, when the ACC will likely have a nine-game schedule. Virginia Tech has games vs. William & Mary, vs. East Carolina, at Ohio State and vs. Western Michigan that year. One will have to be moved. (The '15 schedule only has three none-conference games -- vs. Furman, vs. Ohio State, at East Carolina. The Akron game listed on the Virginia Tech website is no more.)

Weaver said Virginia Tech will continue with its scheduling philosophy, trying to play one BCS-caliber team, one mid-level team like East Carolina, Ohio or Marshall and one Football Championship Subdivision team like James Madison or William & Mary each year.

Although the Big Ten and Pac-12 enter into a scheduling agreement that will pair off all 12 of their teams annually in 2017 , the final year of the Hokies'  home-and-home contract with Wisconsin, Weaver doesn't foresee that matchup being in jeopardy.

"I think they’ll honor the contract," he said.

However, scheduling games beyond that could be problematic with Big Ten teams, who will be committed to nine annual conference games and a matchup with a Pac-12 team, leaving only two non-conference slots available. Weaver think Big Ten schools will probably follow fill out their schedules the same way Virginia Tech does, adding a mid-level team from the MAC and perhaps an FCS foe.

---

One other quick note: Weaver made a proposal to the ACC to add a second replay official to the booth to put an extra set of eyes on potential game-changing rulings.

This is obviously in reaction to Danny Coale's catch/non-catch in overtime in the Sugar Bowl, a play that was overturned by one replay official who claimed to see an angle in which the ball touched the ground (an opinion ACC supervisor of officials Doug Rhoads, and many others, disagreed with).

Weaver's proposal -- which would put two replay officials in the booth for important games like the ACC championship and BCS games -- has been forwarded to Rhoads, who is in charge of the next step of getting it implemented.

COMMENTS ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here; comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its websites. Users must follow agreed-upon rules: Be civil, be clean, be on topic; don't attack private individuals, other users or classes of people. Read the full rules here.
- Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the report violation link below it.