The flaw in the BCS is that it smears an uneven coating of logicability and scientiferousness over a process that is ultimately as manipulated and corrupt as anything that went before. If you’re going to have chicanery, ham-handedness, schedule-puffing, vote-rigging and general foolishness, then do it right out in the middle of the pool hall where we can all see it, but don’t pretend that the BCS has somehow brought sunshine and even-handed opportunity to the process. Or if you must, at least ask Oregon about it. Put your welder’s glass on first.

As an aside, I recognize that the number of major conferences would seem to dictate at least 8 seats on any notional playoff starship, but let’s be honest: how often are there really more than four teams legitimately contending for the title in December? Four should be enough to get the job done; if you’re going to go more than that, something has to be done to make strength of schedule much more rigorous a factor in selection.

this is the only way that makes sense. Why? Who knows? Who Cares?

Just do it. Now.

Then there is “…our unfortunate habit of celebrating being in a new city by ordering the rankest porno we can find on the pay-per-view.” Now its snippets like this that I find actually funny, entertaining and worthy of my time, and I’ll leave the continuing soap opera of “To BCS or Not To BCS” to the pros.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xofz0Cp_XCQ

Unless the mid-major conferences are taken out of the equation, there can’t be equal bargaining amongst conferences, and probably shouldn’t be. Conferences v. NCAA may have some equality, but it seems to reek of inside poker as often as not.

If you set the major bowl games in advance (as the old bowl system did), a lot of the BS seems to go out the window (e.g. who’s ranked where, when). And it seems as though we end up with BCS championship games that look a lot like the old bowl games anyway.

stevechas: That’s not an option when those September rankings play a huge factor in determining the champion. (See 2004 again: yes, Auburn might have legitimately lost out on strength of schedule arguments as well, but they could have probably substituted a beatdown of Ohio State for that Citadel game and still been left out in the cold because USC and Oklahoma started light-years ahead in the rankings.)

For a sport that cares as much about tradition as college football does, the BCS is the worst of both worlds: it wrecks the “traditional” bowl matchups in the name of providing an undisputed on-field champion, yet fails to deliver one. I’d rather go back to the pre-BCS days when everyone knew the championship was bullshit than continue with the system as-is. (An eight-team playoff is ideal, I think, so long as you do not guarantee any particular conference’s champion a spot – which, of course, means that this will never happen in a million years.)

I believe the “best” way under the BCS system involves a relatively easy change–no rankings before October 15…from anybody…about anything.