Suggested BCS "fix"

Watching the TCU v. Boise St. San Diego Credit Union Bowl today reminded me of how much I love Bowl games and college football in general. This was a killer matchup between two non-major conference teams that could have been in a sixteen team playoff for D1A. If such a thing existed. As much as I admire both teams, and as compelling as Boise's 12-0 regular season record is, watching this game did nothing to make me yearn for a college football playoff. If they played twenty times, Florida and Oklahoma would have torn either of these teams apart all twenty.

Knowing this didn't make me enjoy the game any less. There is just something about football. Watching two teams of college kids, coming from different systems and different backgrounds, playing their asses off to win a game is always compelling. The fact that two other teams somewhere else on the planet could play the game better is almost irrelevant.

This is the number one reason why college football is the best sport on earth. The number two reason is something many fans forget this time of year. College football has, far and away, the most meaningful regular season of any sport that purports to crown a champion. Proponents of a lengthy playoff wax on about how compelling that matchups would be, and the interest they would generate. These people fail to realize that a three or four week playoff would destroy the very thing that makes college football unique, and generates most of the interest in the sport to start with.

Every Saturday for two months, I can tune in the television and see multiple, meaningful games that impact who will play in the big bowls and who will play for the national championship. Any one loss can doom a team's season, depending on that team's ultimate goal. Every game matters. Compare this to the NFL. As much as I like the San Diego Chargers, they started the season 4-8 and still have the chance to make the playoffs.

How excited am I supposed to get for each regular season game knowing that? I can't. The NFL is bullshit compared to college football. Admit it, outside of your "team", your fantasy team, and whatever bets you lay each week, you wouldn't give a crap about the NFL either.

Against that backdrop, we have the cartel that gets to decide who plays for the national championship every year. It is a crappy system, though I would submit it is better than the old system of crowning a mythical national champion after a series of totally unregulated bowl games. That Texas beat Oklahoma on a neutral field this year and was left out of the national championship is silly. Some years there are three or perhaps four teams that can argue that they had the best regular season. But the number is never more than four. With that in mind, here is my solution to the BCS "mess" if you want to call it that.

Let's start by acknowledging that the BCS, its television contracts and the resulting system are really about money and territory. Only so much change can be tolerated. Here is a basic but unassailable plan to wet the beaks of the people in power while pacifying the restless natives by creating a playoff of sorts:

The BCS keeps the Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar and adds the Gator as a fifth bowl. These bowls are to be played on January 1 or 2. At the end of the regular season, the BCS rankings will spit out the four best teams. From there, the teams will be placed as follows:

1.The No. 1 team, assuming it is a conference champion, shall play in the bowl designated by its championship. Fiesta= Big 12, Sugar=SEC, Orange=ACC, Rose=Pac-10 and/or Big 10. The Gator was added for this situation. This will become the Big East's champion's designated bowl. If the #1 team is not a conference champion, it is placed as set forth below.

2. The No. 2 team, assuming that it is a conference champion, shall play in the bowl designated by its championship. If not, it is placed as set forth below.

3. The No. 3 team, assuming it is a conference champion, will be placed in the bowl designated by its championship unless both #1 and #2 are conference champions. Assuming both #1 and 2 are conference champions, the No. 3 team will play against the #2 team at the bowl that team is slotted for. If either #1 or 2 is not a conference champion, it will play at #3's conference designated spot. If neither #1 or #2 is a conference champion the Number #3 team shall play the #4. In the unlikely event none of the top 3 teams are conference champions, the top 2 teams will select, in order, which bowl they wish to attend. The #3 team will then be matched against the #2 team.

4. The #4 team will play highest ranked conference champion at that team's designated bowl unless none are conference champions, in which case it will play the #1 team.

5. Notwithstanding 1-4 above, in the event that both the PAC-10 and Big-10 champions are ranked in the top 4, the teams will play in the Rose Bowl unless the National Championship game will be played in Los Angeles. Assuming the National Championship game is slated for Los Angeles, the lower ranked team will be treated as a not having been a conference champion and will be slated accordingly. If these two teams play in the Rose Bowl, the higher ranked of the two remaining teams shall play in the bowl designated by its conference championship against the final remaining team. If the higher ranked team is not a conference champion, but the lower ranked team is, the teams shall play in the bowl designated by the lower ranked team's championship. In the event neither team is a conference champion, the bowl of the team with the higher ranking will host the game.

6. The other BCS games will be populated by champions from the other BCS conferences and wildcard teams in accordance with the current BCS system.

7. With the exception of the Gator Bowl, all other bowls remained unchanged.

8. The winners of the two games between the nation's top four teams play in a National Championship game approximately one week after the Jan 1 & 2 games. The game will rotate between BCS venues, as it does now. One thorny issue. Does the Gator get added to the rotation?

This plan is the best anyone is going to come up with. It leaves the current situation virtually untouched while getting us a lot closer to a true national champion. The value of being a conference champion, which seems so important to the BCS, is left intact. The Rose Bowl gets thrown a bone. It doesn't cheapen the other BCS bowls any worse than they've been cheapened. Most of all, it puts some pressure on the various BCS conferences to put a good product on the field. As long as this ACC proves incapable of producing a championship contender, the Orange is not going to host a national semifinal. This is the way it should be. I cannot imagine a coherent argument against this system from either a realist's (which is to say fiscal), academic (no change other than for the two teams that would play twice) or competitive standpoint.

Of course, if I am missing something, let me know. But, if you are a hawk preparing to tell me it doesn't go far enough, you will get a debate about practical reality of doing any more.

For what it is worth, this year's national semis would be Florida v. Texas in the Sugar and Oklahoma v. Alabama in the Fiesta. Yeah, it is a little incestuous, and USC is left out in the cold, but it would be sweet. By the way, the other games would be Rose: USC v. Penn St., Gator: Cinci v. Utah and Orange: Virginia Tech v. Ohio State. That would be five great games, better than what we are looking at now.