Let’s face it; the BCS is a failed experiment that leaves countless college football fans reeling from the frustration of not having a clear-cut national champion year after year.  At every level in every sport, from Olympic basketball to competitive cup stacking, champions are decided through performance against a deserving opponent in a playoff setting. However, the league that is possibly the second-most popular in the country, next to its professional brother, the NFL, does not. Its Division II and III counterparts use a playoff as well. College football uses confusing and ridiculous polls voted on by sports writers, coaches and – the granddaddy of them all – a completely hidden and at times unreliable computer formula that picks a champion by comparing teams that may not have as many as one common opponent. Last season’s debate about who would play LSU in the national championship involved three teams that had one common opponent among them – Oklahoma State and Stanford beat unranked Arizona. There’s hope on the near horizon, though. The NCAA has finally caved to the cries of the masses and is considering the idea of a four-team playoff. Should be simple, right? The four best teams in the nation play a semi-final game and the winners play one another for the title. Wrong. Almost every conference has a different opinion on how to fill the four-team playoff, and the constant conference realignment talks aren’t easing the strife. The most contentious of these talks involves how the four teams will be decided.  The Southeastern and Big 12 conferences are predictably in favor of the “four best teams” format. The SEC, the conference that has produced the past six national champions, wants the four best teams, regardless of conference or the winning of said conference, to reach the playoff. Hypothetically, if two teams were from the same division and one of those teams didn’t win the division – let alone the conference – but was still ranked in the top four, it would still make the playoff. SEC commissioner Mike Slive recently said the SEC had unanimously voted for the top-four format decided on by a tweaked BCS formula. The reason the SEC voted for this format is that if multiple teams from a conference were ranked in the top four, that conference would take an even larger cut of the multi-million-dollar cake that is the BCS bowls. The Big 12 wants the top four teams to be chosen by a selection committee that would give special consideration to conference champions. Slive has also announced that this will be the only format the SEC will accept outside of the strict top four BCS teams. This committee is speculated to be similar to the NCAA tournament selection committee for basketball. The basketball committee is made up of university presidents and athletic directors from around the country, including LSU’s athletic director, Joe Alleva. However, current talks suggest that former coaches would make up a large portion, if not all, of the football committee. Former Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer and former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden have both said they are interested in joining the committee. Because who would be less biased than former coaches? Maybe the NCAA could get some former players to be on the committee too. Maybe they could set up pictures of the top 25 teams and whichever four Mike the Tiger doesn’t eat make the playoff. Presidents and athletic directors obviously have strong ties to their universities and conferences, too. But, in theory, they should be a little more impartial than a man who has his school’s field named after him. The ACC, on the other hand, a conference that hasn’t had a legitimate title contender since Miami could still call themselves “The U” without being laughed at, originally backed the 3-1 plan but switched to the conference champions mold, with the stipulation that they must be ranked in the top six. The 3-1 plan suggests that the top three ranked conference champions and one “wildcard” team form the playoff. This leaves the door open to lower ranked conference champions to get in instead of more deserving teams. The SEC thought it could bully the rest of the conferences into accepting their format like the league’s defensive ends bully quarterbacks. However, it’s come off more as a child whining until it gets what it wants, and the rest of the leagues are refusing to oblige. The 3-1 format is most likely to be adopted at this point. It’s the closest thing to a sensible compromise that the NCAA has left on the table. Then again, someone once thought that the BCS was a sensible idea, too.
 
____ Contact Mike Gegenheimer at [email protected]