The King's system makes as much sense as the current BCS. Hopefully the AP voters will split the National Championship (like they did for USC a few years ago) and name The Green Wave as co-Champions.

Someone talking some sense!

But a REAL system would count the number of Bible verses on the players cheeks, and then give the national championship to the team with the most different verses. For a tie-breaker, use the team that points at the sky the most after scoring or making a monster hit on the quarterback.

...way to crown a champion....it makes more sense than the Wizard of Oz type theatrics that the BCS computer system is....pay not attention to the man behind the curtain!

Congrats to the Green Wave..........

In a dusty corner of my brain I seem to remember a year when you could perform a similar exercise and conclude that Slippery Rock University held claim to the national title. Can anyone confirm this?

King,

Love you, love the columns, but you're as off as the chattering class on boo-yaa and the newspaper columnists on the whole "national championship" thing. We don't need a playoff, what we need is a return to the "old days" where the bowls had tie-ins and the "national champion" was decided by the AP/UPI polls. No playoff is going to capture all the teams that should be in it anyway.

Not scientific, not even really satisfying, but --- lets say that the BCS didn't exist. Maybe the Utes get a Fiesta Orange, or Sugar Bowl bid; maybe they don't. But at least they've got a puncher's chance of getting into the big game, and in a season like this one, they'd have a pretty good argument for the pollsters if they beat OU or Florida or Texas on New Years day.

It makes as much sense as the BCS and has actual game results to back it up.

Anything would be better than the beauty contest they call a championship; it might as well be figure skating.

didn't Houston beat Tennessee? and didn't the Colts beat Tennessee? and didn't the Colts beat Houston twice? and didn't the Colts beat the Steelers? and didn't the Steelers beat the Ravens? twice, and didn't the Giants and the Eagles both beat the Steelers. And didn't the Chargers beat the Colts? So maybe the Chargers deserve a better seed, is what I am saying, instead of what they have.

So maybe the NFL needs the BCS system?

I understand the humor of naming Tulane NC. Tulane is 4 steps from Ole Miss, but you know who else beat Ole Miss? Alabama. Which Utah beat. The chart in the link below covers just about any team for which a legitimate argument could be made.

http://cdn.faniq.com/images/blog/f26b7160943e1717e1569605a00283ce.jpg

Turns out nobody beat anybody who beat Utah.

(and this is coming from a guy who hates Utah as a fan of the oft abysmal SDSU).

I suppose the real question is whether there should be a college football national champion? The only people who want it are the powerful schools, you know the same ones that rotate the national champion trophy around each year and complain when it is not their turn, yawn. If the PAC 10 and the Big 10 suddenly said they were dropping out of the BCS and were going back to the Rose Bowl exactly 2 schools would care - USC and Ohio State. And it is really only those 2 schools (out of 20)that would end up caring about a playoff system.

For a playoff system to work there needs to be relative parity among the participants or you get the same result as the BCS, the same teams over and over again with an odd twist like Utah. without a national championship we can go back to enjoying the bowl season again. That is my vote, let college players be college players and the pros be the pros.

Mr. Kaufman. Your blog on this subject is erroneously and self contradictory. Utah played 13 games over the regular and post season schedule, and won them all. Obviously each team can play a maximum of one game each week but the playing schedule for all teams extends over 23 weeks given "off weeks" for each team and the break twixt the regular and bowl games. The number of teams over that span of time who at any time are arbitrarily "voted" (always subjectively by non participants in two polls). The "coaches" poll would be a glaring conflict of interest in any other category of society. The variables are exponential; yet crammed into an arbitrarily defined limit of 25 ratings in 3 major polls, ratings determined by "ballots" from arbitrarily selected "voters." What, pray tell, can any objective and defensible rating algorithm be concluded from that protocol?.

Your arithmetic of "top twenty-five" teams defeated by Utah over the course of the players 2009-2009 eligibility year was incorrect. Utah defeated at least 6 teams who were so rated the season the Utes engaged them: Michigan, Oregon State, TCU, Brigham Young, Air Force, Alabama.

I agree...and believe that a simple transformation can help a lot. Take the eight BCS bowl teams and make that your playoff. It doesn't resolve all the issues, but I'm fairly certain that however you end up with the eight teams, they are the teams that would INCLUDE the best national champion. Of course, upsets happen, and there are lots of ways to dice this. But, unlike the NCAA Final Four process, you can't start with 64 teams in football. You need a manageable number and the BCS bowls will mean three games for the final two teams. Not bad. Also, you might want to eliminate one of the non-conference games (or reduce conference games, which conference officials are loathe to do)so that there is less impact on requirements of players, teams and time commitments, which are the usual reasons given for the lack of a playoff. Not perfect...but better than what we have. Utah has a great claim to make that it is #1.