Every year - and remember, I was a Harris Interactive Poll voter from its inception until I left the business two football seasons ago, a Heisman Trophy voter and an AP voter before that - about midway through the college football season there will be something like 10 undefeated teams, and some sportswriter (or sportswriters) go into a panic.
"There's going to be 10 undefeated teams this year!" they'll write. "This is why we need a college football playoff!"
Now, we're down to eight. Of those eight, Alabama and LSU will play each other in two weeks; Oklahoma State and Kansas State play each other that same weekend. That will eliminate two of the eight.
Of those six, Houston doesn't matter. Hate to say it, Cougars - I love ya, I really do. But the league doesn't carry any cache, and neither does the program. So good luck to you, hope you go undefeated, and we'll see you in the Sugar or Orange or Fiesta, but not the BSC Championship Game.
Of those five, Boise State shouldn't matter. The only difference between Houston and Boise State is that Boise State plays an even worse schedule that Houston, but Boise State has built up personal cache because they beat Oklahoma in a major bowl game that only mattered to Boise.
Stanford still has to play Oregon. Clemson seems to have a very good chance of going undefeated (personally, I hope the Tigers do) but still has South Carolina at the end of the year.
All I'm saying is that, as usually happens, by the end of the year we'll probably be down to only two undefeated teams that matter, and those teams will play for the BCS title.
And once again, the BCS will work.
Even as I write that, understand I'd like to see a four team playoff. We've already got the format, with the BCS championship game played a week after the "big four" of the Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, and Rose bowls.
Here is what I like about college football: every game counts.
Every game in the regular season is like a playoff game. You lose just once, and you know you're in trouble. Lose twice, and except for the rare occasion, and you're pretty much out of it.
I know playoffs are exciting. And I know that professional sports realize it makes good business to expand playoffs. As a fan, I love the 'second chance' of wild card teams as much as anybody.
But let's be honest - no matter what you say, it does make the regular season less important.
If you know you can lose, if you know you can finish in second or even third place, and still get into a playoff, then winning a division or league title doesn't matter nearly as much.
I point to the NCAA mens' basketball tournament. Coaches who are honest will tell you that winning the conference title doesn't matter nearly as much as playing your way into being one of the 65 - or more - teams in the NCAA Tournament. Heck, the truth is, virtually every conference has a post-season tournament, with the automatic bid going to the winner.
So coaches know everything that happens between November and March is only to get ready for post-season play. Shoot, you could go 0-25 (or however many regular season games your team plays) but if you get hot at the right time you could then win, say, four games in the conference tournament and six in the NCAA Tournament - 10 straight games - and be crowned national champion.
That's why I love college football the way it is. I love that every game matters.
And its hard to look back over the last 19 years of college football actually trying to manufacture a "real" championship game (Bowl Coalition, Bowl Alliance, Bowl Championship Series), and say it hasn't worked. Oh, there have been teams that got left out of the championship game that probably belonged (Auburn, 2004), but it's pretty hard to argue with the teams that have wound up winning the crystal trophy.
I don't care that Boise State and Houston get left out. We all know year in and year out, the best teams play in the best conferences. If anything, I wish they'd just create that often-discussed but never acted on "Division 4," made up of the top programs that actually make money.
By the way- this idea proposed by NCAA President Mark Emmert, about conferences being allowed to vote to give scholarship athletes an extra $2,000 on top of their scholarship for spending money?
Who do you think can afford that? Only the top conferences, the SECs and Big Tens and so forth.
So where will the best athletes go? Same place they always have - where the money is.
The same place the National Championship Trophy always winds up.
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