BCS Bowl Selection

This year, more than any previous year, has shown the need in college football for a playoff system. The BCS system has been used for years and it has continued to show flaws. From a year when both Michigan and LSU share the national championship to this season when we have a two loss team with a title shot while an undefeated team looks in from the outside.

BCS bowl selection can not be an easy process, but there have got to be better guidelines than used Sunday. When Missouri got left out of the BCS bowls despite losing to only one team, Oklahoma, and get passed up for Kansas, a team they beat, something seems wrong. #6 Missouri lost twice to Oklahoma, arguably the best team in the country, and beat Kansas in their lone show down, yet #9 Kansas is receiving the big pay day. Kansas beat one ranked opponent in 2007 and that was against #24 Kansas St. They finished the season with a strength of schedule ranked #109 out of #119. Would Missouri have been better off not being in a conference championship and standing idle in the final week of the season?

That brings us to the topic of conference championships. Ohio St. finished their season two weeks ago and since the Big Ten doesn't play a conference title game, they backed their way from #6 to #1 by sitting at home. So who has the advantage? On one hand, the Big Ten and Pac-10 each play a regular season to determine conference champion. If you come out on top of your conference, you are going to BCS game. However, it is like posting a score of Sunday in golf and hanging out in the clubhouse waiting to see if you win. In other conferences, ACC and SEC, they play a conference championship to determine their automatic BCS bid. This gives each team another shot at a quality team to better their resume for a national title. They have a chance with a win to leap frog the idle teams, yet they run the risk of dropping in the polls and out of the BCS with a loss.

At the end of the season, there will always be teams looking in at the BCS thinking they belong. We get the chance to play Monday morning quarterback after the bowl games and determine who we think should have been in. If Kansas loses by 30 to Virgina Tech, we will point to the fact Missouri was left out. If Hawaii pulls off an undefeated season and beats Georgia, we will say they gave the right team a shot. There is no closure and we can play what-ifs all bowl season and we will never be satisfied.

Our only way to be satisfied is to give the fans what they want, playoffs. March Madness is the highlight of college sports and a football version in December and January would give fans a definitive answer to our only question, "Who is #1?"