It's best if I just come out and say it.
I love the BCS.
There you have it, and before you lambast, let me explain. I was nothing more than a casual college football fan before I came to UF just more than four years ago. I'd watch the big games and catch the Hurricanes or Gators whenever I got a chance, but it wasn't "Must See TV" for me.
Today, I won't allow myself to miss a game, and there are few things I enjoy more than debating all the different permutations we could end up with.
Now don't take this as me saying the BCS is the best way for a champion to be crowned. It's far from it, actually. I'm a huge fan of the NBA, and I stand by the notion that a seven-game series is generally the best way to learn who the best team in a league is.
Obviously, such a thing is impossible in football, which leads everyone to say that college football should switch to an eight-team, single-elimination playoff.
As recently as a few years ago, I was a proponent of a system like that, but as time moves on I feel like it may be a little less satisfying than the BCS, which allows for endless debates and makes every week feel like the fate of the world lies in the balance.
We would lose that if college football went to a playoff, and I have to admit, I'd be a bit disappointed by it.
Also, there is no guarantee that a playoff would truly crown the best team in the country. College football is based entirely upon making as much money as possible for the NCAA and the college presidents. This means that in a pretend playoff the winners of the six BCS conferences would receive automatic bids, and Notre Dame would have some loophole created so it could get into the championship mix as well. That leaves two at-large bids available at the most.
Using this season as an example, let's pretend Texas Tech, UF, Penn State, Southern Cal, Georgia Tech and West Virginia lock up their respective conferences. And let's also imagine that Texas and Utah, by virtue of being an undefeated mid-major, receive the at-large bids.
With this we still have a screwy playoff with two teams (Georgia Tech and West Virginia) that have no business being in the tournament while great teams like Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Alabama would be left out in the cold. Any of those three teams would be good enough to win an eight-team playoff, but none would be given the opportunity.
You might say the solution would be to just take the top eight teams in the BCS and ignore conferences altogether, but that's just unrealistic. I don't think there's any way college football will ever move to a playoff. There's too much money to be lost from bowl games, but even if they did, the only way they would consider it is if the six BCS conferences received automatic bids.
With the possibility that a playoff could be nearly as unsatisfying as a bunch of dudes in front of a computer crunching numbers, why not simply enjoy the endless possibilities of the BCS.
I definitely am.
