SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The Mountain West Conference has performed so well the past two seasons that it could receive an automatic bid to the BCS in the 2012 and '13 seasons.

BCS executive director Bill Hancock was hesitant Wednesday to say the MWC, which has placed Utah and TCU in the Bowl Championship Series the last two seasons, was on course to become the seventh automatic qualifying conference.

But he did tell the conference commissioners and athletic directors gathered here this week for meetings that they should be aware of the strides the Mountain West has made toward earning an automatic bid.

The BCS rates non-automatic qualifying leagues using three criteria that measure the strength of its best teams and the league as a whole. The first two seasons of the four-year evaluation period were 2008 and '09, banner years for the MWC.

The Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Atlantic Coast Conference, Pac-10 and Southeastern Conference currently receive automatic BCS bids.

"If they [the Mountain West Conference] meet the threshold, they'll be the seventh," Hancock said, though he added the way the other conferences perform over the next two seasons influences that threshold.

Hancock also said the BCS in the future would like to avoid playing its non-championship games on weekday nights because it hurts attendance.

He cited the fact that Iowa brought 28,000 fans in January to the Orange Bowl, which was played on a Tuesday.

Right. The BCS has the ability to accept seven AQ conferences. Nothing new. That's been known for years, back when the MWC wanted to replace the Big East as an AQ conference.

Now if you're taking "they'll be the seventh" to mean the Big East will survive as an AQ conference beyond any possible Big Ten expansion, I wouldn't read into it that much. Hancock has no idea whats going on with the member conferences. He's going off of what we have today and today we have six AQs. That could change in the future, but he's not going to speculate on that.

My take on all of the news yesterday is that - barring expansion - no BCS conference is in danger of losing its BCS status and the MWC is closing in on BCS status as the 7th league.

After analyzing all the data, the MWC is very close through 2 years. Unfortunately, with the BCS releasing clear cut qualifications, close isn't good enough. We either make it or we don't.

welcome to our world....