We all grasp by now that the Bowl Championship Series is less a vehicle to deliver a true national championship in college football than a self-serving way for elite conferences to hang on to the lion's share of what has been $100 million in annual postseason loot.

So it was fitting that the Mountain West Conference yesterday rolled out its solution to BCS inequities. It's an eight-team playoff, one that, coincidentally, would nudge the MWC to the table with an automatic bid.

"The current system is not fair and somebody needs to stand up and say that and ask for dialogue amongst all the parties involved," University of Wyoming President Tom Buchanan said on a conference call.

Bravo.

But as someone on the call noted, the MWC could have stepped forward several times earlier, including the BCS meetings last April, and didn't. Because it didn't, it was suggested, a cynic might wonder, "Where were you then?"

Where, indeed?

It appears the MWC got its BCS religion, if not its voice, about the time one of its members, unbeaten Utah, got left out of the national championship game two months back. And, of course, there was no $17 million check for the MWC, either.

Not a peep was heard two seasons ago when unbeaten Boise State was left high and dry in the title picture. Nor, you suspect, would the MWC have uttered a word had it been, say, Tulsa or Ball State that got ripped off this past season.

Make no mistake about it, the BCS needs to be overhauled. There should be genuine debate and serious solutions toward a football version of the NCAA basketball tournaments.

To that extent the MWC proposal is welcome. But what isn't needed are more self-aggrandizing grabs by individual conferences. That's what created the situation we have now.

Of course, it helps to remember that the MWC was created by the schools that clandestinely chose to bolt the WAC and hijacked the TV contract on the way out the door.

Real change to the BCS, if it is to come, will probably occur after 2014. That's why the MWC voice was needed last April when commissioners met in Florida to consider revamping the BCS. Or, before November 2008, when ESPN put $125 million per year on the table for TV rights to the BCS Championship game and bowls through 2014.

I mean, you think the participating conferences are going to suddenly walk away from the recently negotiated $125 million annual payout in these challenging economic times?

Yesterday's MWC proposal is useful as another log on the pile that might, eventually, someday light a fire for change under the BCS. Welcome to the fight, MWC. Too bad it took you so long to roll up your sleeves and wade in.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.