BCS? Boo! Let's talk about playoffs

By Eddie Hughes

Sorry college football fans. You won’t get to see the nation’s two best teams play this season.

Well, according to the Bowl Championship Series rankings you will, but that’s just a computer formula.

The official announcement was made Sunday afternoon that Oklahoma will face LSU in the Sugar Bowl. Presumably, the national championship would go to the winner. But, this season, maybe not.

USC is ranked No. 1 in both the Associated Press and coaches’ polls after previously unbeaten Oklahoma was dismantled by Kansas State in Saturday’s Big 12 championship.

But—USC is being left out of the Sugar Bowl and being sent to the Rose Bowl to play Michigan. Apparently the computers know something the people who are voting don’t. And the people watching can’t be happy about it.

Show me a person who is happy USC isn’t playing in the Sugar Bowl, and I’ll show you an LSU fan.

Lucky for the Trojans, they’re not out of the national title picture yet. They’re sitting pretty atop the AP poll, knowing that a win over Michigan could give them a share of the national title and expose the faults of the BCS.

Plenty of people—especially at those non-BCS-conference schools—must be rubbing their hands together in anticipation of seeing the exclusive bowl system go, “KABOOM.” Think Fresno State. A member of the non-BCS Western Athletic Conference wouldn’t like to see a tie for the national championship when the whole purpose of the BCS bowl system is to create a single national title game?

Think any of the mid-majors—Fresno State, TCU, Boise State—that have come close to cracking the BCS ranks since the system was implemented in 1998 wouldn’t like to see a tie for the title?

Change is needed folks. It may take proof that the system is broken before we ever see change, but it is needed.

In college basketball, every team has a fair shot at the national championship. Traditional powers like Kentucky and Kansas have to take the same road as traditional Cinderellas—Valparaiso and Kent State.

Why not in football?

Why couldn’t there be December Destiny or January Jamboree to compete with basketball’s March Madness?

Why couldn’t 16 of the nation’s top football teams—including each conference champion and five at-large teams—go to a postseason tournament to decide who’s the best in the land.

It could even be tied in with the already existing bowl games, with the more lucrative bowl games being in the final rounds.

This way, the Ohio States and Floridas of college football wouldn’t have to complain that Miami of Ohio has just one loss because they play in a weaker conference. It wouldn’t matter because the whole country could find out who has the better team by watching them play head-to-head. The last team standing wins. It really could be that simple.

Who knows if college football will ever turn to a playoff system? But if it did, one thing is for sure.

There wouldn’t be a tie for the national championship.