BCS Still Leaves A Sour Taste

To his credit, Coach Urban Meyer is still calling for a playoff system even after his Gators were selected to play for the national championship. (By Stephen Morton -- Associated Press)

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing whatsoever against the Florida Gators. But I so hoped Florida would be voted No. 3. Not that I have any fondness for Michigan. Like a lot of folks, I had no desire to see an Ohio State-Michigan rematch in the BCS title game.

But any right-thinking person who really cares about college football should have been rooting for the computers and pollsters to put Michigan No. 2 for the sole purpose of angering so many people it might have pushed college football that much closer to a playoff.

Snubbing Florida two years after leaving undefeated Auburn out of the national title game would have been so unpalatable to the lords of the Southeastern Conference, starting with the football-obsessed university presidents, that the reaction would have been dramatic. Let's face it: Except for Vanderbilt and Kentucky, the SEC schools are proud to be defined by football, and the thought of being frozen out of this BCS game for a couple of Yankee schools they see as minor league would have frosted them. The most severe talk would have been of pulling out of the BCS entirely and convincing other leagues to follow along. And the agitating for a playoff would have increased.

It's not a big leap to reach this conclusion. Two weeks ago, when it appeared his Gators might be passed over in favor of Michigan, Florida Coach Urban Meyer essentially said if Florida was passed over for the big game, the powers that be ought to come up with a playoff system right now, this season.

Of course, Meyer was right to scream "playoff" every time he saw a camera or notebook. I was just hoping he was willing to sacrifice for the cause, because anything other than a playoff is still inadequate. The college football season is the only one in major sports in America that at the end often feels incomplete because it's the only major sport, pro or collegiate, without a playoff system.

Much to Meyer's credit, he didn't stop beating the drums for a playoff just because his Gators moved ahead of Michigan into the No. 2 spot and therefore got the invitation to play Ohio State in the BCS championship game on Jan. 8 in Arizona. After saying he believes there will soon be a playoff system, Meyer added, "If you want a true national championship, the only way to get one is on the field."

Amen.

Meyer saying that the last two weeks was just lobbying.

Meyer saying that after getting the nod in the polls might influence somebody.

If more coaches did that, and told their school presidents who are slavishly devoted to the football team, we might actually see a playoff or something more closely resembling one within the next half-dozen years.

As for Florida over Michigan, it's difficult to state a logical case against Gators over Wolverines if we're stuck with computers and votes.

Florida played nine conference games in the toughest conference in the country. There's no question the SEC is the best league, and Florida won at Tennessee, and also defeated Alabama, LSU, Georgia and South Carolina. Out of conference, Florida defeated legit big boys in Southern Mississippi and rival Florida State. They played only one patsy, Western Carolina. And of course, Florida's only loss was at Auburn.

The biggest feather in Michigan's cap was throttling Notre Dame in South Bend. Florida didn't have a single victory as impressive. In fact, my only real problem with Florida is that the Gators played eight home games and only two heavyweights (Tennessee and Auburn) on the road. And Michigan did win at Penn State, did beat 11-1 Wisconsin, and did push Ohio State to the limit in Columbus.

See, we're splitting hairs. It's sad that in this day and age, when the sports culture demands the best matches promoters can dream up, that we have to settle for such a lazy solution to finding a college football champion. The Saturday night-Sunday morning process of picking Florida over Michigan turns college football into figure skating, which is pathetic.

What the shift in the coaches and Harris polls suggest is that the voters simply didn't want to see a Michigan-Ohio State rematch. And after Southern Cal lost to UCLA, the choice was Florida or Michigan.

There's nothing bad about an Ohio State-Florida matchup for the final game. The Gators appear to some of us to have a slight advantage because they've played twice since Thanksgiving, while Ohio State will have been idle for 51 days by Jan. 8. But it would have been so much better to have, next week, Michigan and Florida meet in one semifinal game while Ohio State played undefeated Boise State in the other. That would be two undefeated teams and two teams with one loss. Nobody else this season need apply.

Then, the Michigan kids wouldn't be sitting at home feeling awful about the only blemish on their schedule being a three-point loss at Ohio State. We'd find out if a mid-major (Boise State) could have the same kind of impact on the college football season that George Mason had on the last college basketball season.

The winners could have played on Dec. 16, or New Year's Day if tradition needed to be served. Instead, as we've become accustomed to by now, we've got half the excitement college football could have produced and twice the frustration.