There are 119 teams in Division A College Football. Imagine your job is to pick just two that deserve to play for the National Championship.

In the past, college football was very different, bowl games were decided by conference winners and top independent teams. Today the whole nature of post season college football has changed.  From its beginning in 1998 the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) has caused nothing but controversy across the whole country.  Since it was put into effect, the BCS formula has changed seven times, most recently adopting a fifth game, the National Championship played separate from the usual bowls, the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange. 

The controversy in the college football world is that everyone wants the chance to play in the biggest games but sometimes voters, and even computers, have to choose the most deserving teams.  In the past five years this has left a deserving team out of the most important bowl games, and not only is there controversy over the top two teams, but there is controversy over the conference winners from the six BCS conferences, plus four “at large” selections.

That’s 10 teams, but most of the time the top two teams win their conferences, so then the second ranked team in the conference gets to go, and after all that, the at large teams must be selected and placed.  To help conferences outside of the BCS and independent schools like Notre Dame there are a few things they have to do, if a school finishes in the top 12 with 9 or more wins, they will automatically earn a BCS bid.  This mostly applies to Notre Dame, basically Notre Dame is the only independent or non BCS school that can lose one or two games and still finish in the top 12.  Just like this year, Boise State, and two years ago with Utah, it takes a perfect record for a team from a smaller conference such as the Western Athletic Conference(WAC) or the Mountain West Conference to play a BCS game. 

Of course, the most controversy comes at the top, when there are three or even four teams who feel deserving of a trip to the championship game.  The formula works like this, the final rankings are a combination of two human polls, the AP Poll, and the Harris Poll, and then, of course, the computer poll the BCS has made famous.  In the beginning the BCS poll was a formula combining, the AP Poll, the coach’s poll, the computer poll, with points added and taken away for strength of schedule and losses.  In recent years there have been continuous controversies over the top two teams.  In 2001 one-loss Florida State played Oklahoma. The controversy was with the University of Miami, which, although ranked #2 in both human polls and having defeated Florida State earlier in the year, was passed up for  Florida State, which went on to lose 13-2.

In 2002 Nebraska lost its only game in their season finale at Colorado 62-36 but because the computers do not take time of loss into account they were still ranked #2 ahead of two-loss Colorado and one-loss Oregon, Nebraska went on to get smacked in the Orange Bowl by Miami while Oregon took it to Colorado in the Fiesta Bowl.  In 2003 three teams sat at the top with one loss, USC, LSU, and Oklahoma, which lost its final game at the Big 12 Championship to Kansas State 35-7.  USC finished the season ranked #1 in both human polls, but because of computer poll rankings was #3 in the BCS poll and was thus left out of the championship.  After USC beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl and LSU beat Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl, USC remained #1 in the AP Poll while LSU earned an automatic #1 spot in the coach’s poll because of their BCS win, and, unfortunately, we were left with two co-champions.  In 2005 three teams were undefeated at the end of the year, Auburn, USC, and Oklahoma, once again with USC and Oklahoma playing for the title, another deserving school was left out. 

If by this year people haven’t realized the system is faulty, then this year will hopefully convince everyone.  Although no one has a problem with undefeated Ohio State playing in the National Championship, there is, as usual, a problem with the second place spot.  The University of Michigan and the University of Florida both finished the season with one loss each, Michigan at #1 Ohio State 42-39, and Florida at #10 Auburn 27-17.  When Michigan ending its season at Ohio State in the game of the year, Florida still had two more games to persuade voters.  Florida went on to beat 6-6 Florida State 21-14 and in the SEC Championship against #8 Arkansas won 38-28.  With USC losing at UCLA it came down to the voters to decide which team had earned it more. As most people now know, the pollsters had a change of heart in two weeks, moving Florida ahead of Michigan.  Whatever it was, something made the voters believe in those two weeks that Florida had earned a shot, and maybe it was because no one wanted to see a rematch, but you need to find the two most deserving teams and put them in the Championship.  Ironic on the other hand is the fact that despite Florida coach Urban Meyer’s objections to a rematch, the University of Florida’s only national championship came in 1996 with a victory against Florida State after having lost to them earlier in the year.

There needs to be a change, and I think that playoffs are the only legit option. Yes it’s complicated, and yes it would make the season longer, but how can you be the only sport to not have a playoff and think that it works?  No matter what format there will be controversies, but finally, with a playoff system we will have a real champion, most likely being Penn State every year, but who knows.