The BCS Ruined College Football

First, answer these questions for me:

What are the top teams playing for?

If you don't make the title game, then what is there?

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Long ago the bowls were able to facilitate the great rivalries of the game. The Big 10 and Pac 10 would meet in the granddaddy of them all to determine the best 10-team conference. SEC champions all played in New Orleans, where they were free to get in drunken fights each year and provide hours of entertainment that would cap of a perfect New Year's Day. Now the bowls have taken to picking teams like school children on a playground.

"Pick us; we have money and fans, and fans with money!"

"Pick us, the overachieving underdog that could be this year's feel good story!"

"Pick us because we look better on national TV!"

Teams knew that if they won their conference, they would go to this bowl. Win that game, and you might be in the running for a national title. The destination and results were clear. And all the major bowl games meant something! They weren't TV attractions where broadcasters had to spend weeks digging for story angles. It was their best against our best.

But the BCS has taken the most important games of the football season and rendered them all but worthless. And now that there is a separate "National Title Game," it has taken any and all emphasis away from the different major bowls.

All we care about now is who's #1 and #2 – and the BCS can't even get that right. At least before, the decision came down to coaches and writers. Now we rely on computers. And I'm willing to bet that none of the computers used have even watched a single game this year – Not one!

It really is quite simple – the "people in charge of college football" need to decide what "they" want.

If "they" want an argue-free national champion every year, then stop with the silly formulas and just do a flippin' playoff! I mean, let's be serious here, the whole point of the BCS is to pit #1 vs. #2 for the title. If this is what they really wanted, wouldn't a playoff system have been the only course of action? I would have loved to be in that meeting.

"We want the two best teams to play against each other for the title."

"So a playoff system then?"

"No, that's too complicated and we don't want there to be any arguments. We'll just develop a system that combines the polls with rankings based on different computer formulas that can take into account strength of schedule, margin of victory and style points."

"It's perfect!"

But if "they" want to continue the traditions that have made college football unique from every other sport, there is another option, and honestly I wouldn't be opposed to it. To some it may seem like a step back, but I like to think it's more of a "rebirth."

They could axe the BCS all together, and reinstate all the conference ties to the bowl games. Allow for the conference winners to play each other, throw in some at-large bids based on where people are ranked, and then when the dust settles, the pollsters will release their final rankings.

Are there problems with this system? Of course, that's why everyone wanted to change it originally. But this would be a way to keep the tradition of the bowl games alive and give each conference their own specific postseason goal back.

And if you're the best team in the country, and play like it throughout the year and in your bowl game, then I'm willing to bet you'd end up at the top of the polls when all was said and done.