The BCS is broken and should be eliminated or fixed. I watched all of the “BCS Bowls” and the common denominator was either one or two of the teams was either rusty, flat or both. The Sugar Bowl was the best game. The Fiesta Bowl was good but not great. Same with the National Championship game last night. The Rose and Orange both were iffy. Therein lies my question, “How can a team(s) be sharp with anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks from its last game?” Some kind of playoff is needed in addition to some continuity from the last game to get the best and highest quality football.

Utah and USC impressed me the most in this bowl season (and I hate USC). Utah looked very SEC like in handling Alabama. USC’s receivers destroyed Penn State. I don’t know about anyone else but it would sure be interesting to see the height of the USC receivers vs. the speed of the Florida secondary.

Ed, you are on the right track but why not take the top 16 teams as rated in the polls. Or, the champions of the “BCS” conferences plus the top ten teams as rated in a “non champions” poll. The first round would be played at the home stadiums of the higher seeds. The quarterfinals, semifinals and final would then be played at the major bowls. Any teams that had good seasons but not qualified for the playoff would fill in the other bowls. I like your idea of shortening the regular season to accommodate a playoff because there are too many Florida vs. The Citadel type match-ups in a season. No disrespect to the great institution of The Citadel, however, its football team does not belong on the same field as the Florida Gators.

Ultimately though we have to get away from a system where a computer decides which two 11-1 teams out of eight will play each other in a National Championship game four weeks after they have played their last games. It should be decided on the field and through a playoff type system. It would be nice on New Years Day to see a doubleheader that consists of two semifinal games with true meaning. Stadiums would be full and TV ratings through the roof.

Finally, I believe to get a playoff implemented the current cast of characters has to be changed. The college presidents, conference commissioners, athletic directors and the football coaches are the biggest obstacles to a playoff system. An independent “commission” with input from the conference commissioners, athletic directors and football coaches would probably be the only way to get something done. Thats the hard part.

I am a Wisconsin fan and the Badgers had no business being in a bowl game this year as no 7-5 or 6-6 team should. The Big Ten was down with a 1-5 record in the bowls. I believe the Big Ten has some catching up to do to compare to the SEC. A start would be splitting the 11 teams into two divisions and having a Big Ten Championship Game.

Just some thoughts!

There are 12 major conferences. Each conference should be organized like the SEC (notice the number of SEC teams winning national champtionships … gee, wonder if conference structure has anything to do with it?). This means there is a conference championship game at the end of the regular season. The conference champion goes into the Sweet 16.

There are 4 at large that could be filled by the teams ranked in the AP/BSC/USA-Coaches top 16 but weren’t conference champions. (Oh – and to appease the NCAA nitwits, maybe reserve one spot for Notre Dame if they merely get 6 wins.)

Thus you get your 16 teams. All others go into normal bowl games, so they get a 12th game. Playoff teams end up with between 13 and 15 games, which is only 1 more than what UF and others had this year.

There! Problem solved. The NCAA can name the championship game after me for solving their dilemma – The National Championship Ed Bowl.

EPorvaznik is right. USC didn’t let up, and if fact all the announcers stated they wouldn’t because they never do. Penn State just played much better and didn’t make as many mistakes the second half. The first half was the worst they played all year in terms of mental mistakes and unforced errors.

But he’s also right that a loss is a loss and USC won that game outright, exploiting some serious weaknesses in Penn States pass coverage. I just wouldn’t call it a “crush”ing loss.

I agree with you that going 5-0 in bowl games is a big statement. Just like the Big 10’s record in bowls games is an indictment against that division.

But on to the topic of the article, playoff system – YES!

Tell me, at what point was it decided that a single-elimination tournament was the only possible way to determine the best team? Single-elimination tournaments are far too dependent on luck, especially when the elimination condition is a single game rather than a series. So I applaud college football for being the only sport with the courage to think outside the box.

That being said, the BCS is clearly broken. It obviously got things wrong this year (Utah was 1, then Florida, USC, Texas, Oklahoma). I have some ideas on what would fix it, the two big ones being first to schedule some better out of conference games, and the second to make the championship non-binding. We get an ambiguous answer, but so what? Embrace the doubt!

The BCS wasn’t built for the fans, silly. It was built *solely* to make some folks (and companies) extremely rich. Sadly, it is doing that so it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

BTW….Texas fan here. Disgusted….but not enough to throw a fit.

Much has been mentioned elsewhere about the PAC-10 going 5-0 in the bowls this year. Sorry, the SEC had 6 victories, finishing 6-2 – the most representation of any conference. So Alabama doesn’t show up in their bowl game against Utah. Makes sense. They had no chance of winning the national title, but Utah did … so they out-played ‘Bama.

Then South Carolina lost. So 2 SEC teams but it still has more bowl victories than the PAC-10. And what’s that number again … 3 national title won by SEC teams in the last 3 years. How many we won by the PAC-10 in the last 3 years? Oh yeah. None.

Paper tiger, indeed!

I owe the College Presidents a debt of gratitude. Now I find much better things to do with my time than to watch their games (and see their sponsors). Thanks guys, I appreciate the help.