It's an old joke, but I'll retell it because I can't think of a better way to say it. The best way to describe the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is to take the 'C' out of the acronym. That way, you're telling people how accurate it really is.
In case you don't know, the BCS is college football's way of determining a national champion. It figures in eight different national polls, strength of schedule, number of losses, and about a thousand more mind-numbing criteria to determine the top two teams in the country. These two play in the national championship game, which rotates annually between the Nokia Sugar Bowl, the Federal Express Orange Bowl, and the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl (notice how deeply college football is tied to big business).
So you have a very strict mathematical system that plugs every team into a computer, does some Deep Blue calculations, and spits out the top two teams. Sounds pretty fair, right? Wrong. Coming up with the top two teams in the nation this year is about as difficult as extracting an educated sentence from George W. Bush. But we'll get into the whole Florida thing in a second.
Right now, the Oklahoma Sooners are ranked number one in the BCS standings. It makes sense because they are the only top-tiered team that hasn't lost a game, so no one is complaining with where they stand. After the Sooners, though, things get stickier.
Ranked second is Florida State, which has one of the most difficult schedules in the nation - giving it additional points in the BCS rankings. The Seminoles have only one loss, which isn't so bad, but guess who it was to?
The number three team in the BCS standings, the Miami Hurricanes. Hold on a second, why are the Seminoles ranked above the Hurricanes when each team has the same record, but the Canes defeated the Noles? Good question. Unfortunately, it's only been the second most divisive issue in the Sunshine State the past two weeks.
I have a better question, though. Why is everyone feeling so sad for the Hurricanes, claiming that they should be number two because they won the head-to-head matchup with Florida State, when Miami's only loss came to Washington, the number four team in the country?
So now you can see why the computer might start backfiring. The second, third, and fourth teams all have the same record, but number four has beaten three, and number three has beaten two. So who will Oklahoma play in the championship game? Don't get ahead of yourself. If Oklahoma loses its season finale against Kansas State, then Florida State would play Miami. But if Oklahoma wins, as it is favored to, then the Sooners would play Florida State for the right to hoist the Sears Trophy (more corporate sponsorship; in fact, this column is being brought to you by the fine people at Pepsi-Cola).
So why has the number-two team, which we have already proven is no better than the number three or four teams, guaranteed to play in the national championship game, while the number-one team could drop all the way back to number three if it loses?
I have absolutely no idea. The more interesting scenario is that we could have a split championship. If Florida State beats Oklahoma in a close game, and Miami blows out its opponent in a different bowl game, Florida State would win the CNN/SI Coaches Poll, but Miami could with the AP Poll.
Look, it's all very confusing stuff, so I'm going to make a suggestion. Please, for the sake of future columns, can we have a playoff system? I don't have to spend a week explaining how March Madness works, or how the New York Yankees will have to wind their way through the baseball playoffs. Why does college football have to be so different?
Here's how I would do it if I were in charge. First, go down to one poll, the AP. You never hear anyone complain that the AP is biased, and I think eight polls is a bit of overkill. One of the current polls is based on some Seattle Internet geek who ranks teams every week, which is probably fun for him but not so much for a 300-pound lineman who could bench press the coffee-drinking sports dweeb with one hand tied around a coed's waist.
So we have the AP, which ranks every team, and at the end of the regular season, we take the top eight teams and put them in a playoff. One plays eight, two plays seven, and so on. The great thing is, no one loses any money because we would still have all the bowl games. The first quarterfinal game would be played at the John Hancock Bowl (named for the insurance company, not the patriot, in case you had any doubts), the second quarterfinal game would be played at the Galleryfurniture.com Bowl (I swear to you it's a real), and so on.
Finally, two teams would play in the national championship game. Yes, it would extend the season by two games at the most, which is a good thing because teams and the NCAA get more money, and players get to play football longer, which they seem to like. And the best part is when someone wins the Micronpc.com Bowl for the national championship, no one will say they're a BS champ.
