Calling the current system for the Bowl Championship Series unfair, the Mountain West Conference unveiled a proposal Wednesday that would leave the fate of the BCS rankings in the hands of a 12-member committee and would implement a playoff system for the top eight teams.

In announcing the proposal, MWC commissioner Craig Thompson acknowledged that the details of how a system would work, what the next step is or what the financial impact of the new system might be haven't been addressed.

The most important thing he indicated was moving away from the current system that he believes was unjust to teams such as MWC champion Utah. The Utes went 13-0, but never really had a fair shot at playing for the national title in his mind. Utah was ranked No. 2 in the final Associated Press rankings and No. 4 in the USA Today/Coaches poll.

"You can't promote change without offering alternatives, and that is what we've done today," he said.

Under the proposal, a football bowl subdivision conference would be considered an automatic qualifying conference if, over a two-year period, the conference has played a minimum of 20 interconference regular-season games against the six current automatic qualifying conferences (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, SEC) and has a minimum winning percentage of .400 in the games.

Such a system would conveniently include the MWC, which has a 16-13 mark (.552) against automatic qualifying conferences in the 2007 and 2008 seasons.

After the 12-member committee -- consisting of a representative of each of the 11 Football Bowl Subdivision conferences and one from Notre Dame -- ranks the top 25 teams at the end of the season, the committee would then rank the BCS bowl teams from 1 to 10.

Of those, the lowest-ranked teams would play in a new, fifth BCS bowl.

The other eight teams would play in the Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar Bowls, with the winners playing in semifinal games and the winners of the semifinals advancing to a national championship game.

Such a format shares the essentials of the "plus-one format" that was turned down by commissioners in the current BCS system last April. Their reservations were shared with the BCS bowls, particularly the Rose, which covets its ties with the Pac-10 and Big Ten.

Thompson and others involved in Wednesday's conference call admitted those road blocks still exist, but wouldn't deter them from pushing for reform.

"We want a system that is fair and equitable for collegiate football," he said.

Utah athletic director Chris Hill, who is in his fifth season as a member of the NCAA's Division I men's basketball committee, believed a similar committee for football would work well.

"A lot of people don't believe me, but politics in that committee are non-existent," he said. "Everyone takes their job pretty seriously."

The MWC wanted to get its proposal in public because ESPN has a TV agreement for another 4-year cycle under the current BCS system that is supposed to go into effect in April 2010. The MWC hasn't signed the agreement in hopes change to the system could come first.

"Now it's out there," Thompson said of the MWC's proposal. "We have expressed our desire and interest in change."

lwodraska@sltrib.com