Addressing only the BCS (rather than how one would set about trying to create a playoff system): The basic problem, which the "computers" were meant to address, is the reliance on polls. Theoretically, taking into account all the factors that fans routinely consider (strength of schedule, margin of victory, etc.) in an algorithm is the most "objective" way of ranking teams without a playoff to produce actual head-to-head results.

But people were upset because "computers" were picking the teams. Which was never accurate. Computers aren't picking anything. The people who write the algorithms are actually making the picks by establishing criteria then getting out of the way and letting them play out to their inevitable conclusions. Regardless, odd results, like Oklahoma being guaranteed to play in the title game even if it lost the Big 12 championship game to Kansas St., created a furious chorus of "NO FAIR!". Even though the result was actually honoring the arguments that everyone always has: Is the Pac-10 a real conference? Why should a team be penalized for having to play an extra game that other conference champions don't have to play? and so on. The pollsters could've changed the result, but chose not to. Then the coaches chose to somehow honor USC, even though they didn't play for anything, and LSU had the crystal football. USC was never playing for a three-peat because they never actually played for the first championship. It was a fictitious "anointment," that said, "USC would've beaten LSU." Maybe so, but they never did, and that anointment was a return to the purely-poll driven rankings of yesteryear. USC won one championship, lost one. But people created that controversy. Not "computers."

So, re-enter more direct, subjective, human participation by upping the weighting of human polls, and you get back to having a bigger mess, because you don't even have the comfort of cold, objectivity spewing out results nobody likes. Instead, witness the idiocy of all the pollsters essentially picking the OSU-LSU matchup.

I'm an Oklahoma fan. In any other year (and in this one, too, before Saturday night), I'd have said no way does OU deserve to play for the title. They blew their chance. Twice.

And yet, beating the supposed #1 team quite convincingly in a neutral-site championship game left me asking, "Why shouldn't OU be at the head of all the two-loss teams? Did any of them beat #1 on the last day of the season?" Wasn't LSU trailing all game long and needing a minor defensive miracle to win the SEC crown? Isn't Missouri probably better than Tennessee, and a tougher game, it being a re-match and all?

The complaint is more legitimate because OU isn't suffering at the hands of algorithms' implacable results, but pollsters' inherent bias. OU's second loss knocked them to 10. LSU's didn't. Last I checked, OT losses were still losses. Take Mike Leach, of the Big 12, and his vote. It's simply not in his interest to make OU number two. And this conflict of interest was one of the reasons we sought to find a middle ground of objectivity between polls and playoffs. Human subjectivity created the nonsensical ordering of two-loss teams. Why, exactly, would Georgia deserve to play for anything?

As to Hawaii...What can you say? Obviously no one really believes they'd be undefeated if they played in a 'real' conference. Do they deserve a shot? I'd say moreso than LSU. Or even OU.

But, since no one ever really wanted to let the ranking process be more objective than the polls, it becomes clear that some sort of playoff is necessary, and some sort of reconciliation between the various conferences' means of crowning champions must be reached.

I'm no fan of the BCS...but I really wish people could at least accurately understand why it has failed. If you simply took the polls out of the equation, you'd see some very different results. They might not make anyone any happier, but absent a playoff, getting the polls out of the way is a place to start.

Or, as I saw someone suggest, fans should simply boycott the bowl games. That might also get someone's attention.

Basically, as someone suggested, Div. 1-A is just too big. And because the premium has always been on going undefeated to earn a 'mythical' national crown, there's never going to be any incentive to change the non-conference patsy games, which is what 'strength of schedule' was supposed to address.

If you could convince everyone that being undefeated wasn't the primary criteria for contending for a national championship, then you might have more interesting and significant non-conference matchups.

What will never happen, but should, is for all those schools who've been committed to winning in college football to be put in a super conference. Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, USC, Notre Dame, LSU, Florida, Florida St., etc. Borrow from English soccer, and create a couple more tiers below, then allow the last-place finishers in each conference to be demoted, and the winners of second- and third-tier conferences to be promoted.

Whoever wins the super conference is the national champion.