The other shoe has fallen and the Mountain West Conference is now looking for an automatic BCS bid.

Presidents and chancellors of the league’s nine schools addressed the issue during a meeting shortly after the Jan. 8 national championship game and, with Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson, will try to sit down with Atlantic Coast commissioner and current BCS coordinator John Swofford possibly in the coming weeks, Thompson says. The BCS will conduct its annual spring meeting in late April in Pasadena, Calif.

There are big-time obstacles in the MWC’s way, greatest being the contract it entered not long ago to get the special inclusion it already enjoys, but the idea must be considered. The league is too good — as is football, in general — and the argument could easily be made the MWC belongs at the table before, um, some others.

Potential problem? One of those “others” is obviously the ACC, which has been watered down since it expanded and can no longer lean on Miami and Florida State, couldn’t trust Clemson to take the next step and cannot have its flag carried interchangeably by B.C., Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and the other team of the year. The ACC’s commissioner is John Swofford, who happens to be the BCS coordinator.

Another “other” is the Big East, which, quite frankly, isn’t all that great right now and is a regular target of those on the outside who want in. To that, you can expect — and understand — incoming Big East commissioner John Marinatto will do everything within his power to cement his league’s position. Anything less would be a bad first chapter for him.

So the MWC is going to face some resistance, but ideally, all it’s really doing now is getting the issue out there and on the table.

The current BCS doesn’t allow much room for an outsider. It takes the ACC champ to the Orange Bowl, the SEC champ to the Sugar, the Big 12 champ to the Fiesta and the Pac 10 and Big ten champ to the Rose. The Big East is an automatic qualifier, though to no bowl in particular. Notre Dame also gets in if its in the BCS’s top eight. In one ordinary year, seven of the eight BCS spots could be automatically claimed.

In addition, the BCS’s No. 1 and No. 2 play in the separate BCS title game, meaning a conference champion can be pulled from the assigned bowl and then replaced by another team from a BCS league.

There is at least precedence for the MWC, though, because Boise State pretty much got the non-BCS leagues an automatic spot. If an outside finishes in the top 12, it can’t be excluded.

The contract in place doesn’t end until the end of the 2010-11 season. What the MWC can do, though, is create awareness and then do its talking on the field. The pressure is then on the ACC, the Big East and Notre Dame to prove its worthiness. The ACC and the Big East won’t be left out of the new deal and Notre Dame will always have leverage, but any or all could see conditions where it is nudged aside if it doesn’t justify its spot.