Our Favorite Nightmare

Yes, it's still only September, but do you realize that by the time the first weekend of December rolls around, we could have four or five undefeated teams and a one-loss SEC team that could claim legitimate berths into the National Championship game in New Orleans? Picture it if you will, the screaming, gnashing of teeth, and destroyed keyboards clamoring for a gazillion team playoff to settle this..this...wonderful fiasco. We'll go into why it's wonderful a bit later, but first, let us review the six BCS conferences by strength merely on my own accord. 1. PAC-10 Any conference that can boast USC and Cal as legit title threats has to be doing something right, but add Oregon and UCLA, despite the Utah thrashing, and you have four teams with real conference hopes that will be battle tested for the BCS. Only one team has a chance to run the table, but the system will have an extremely hard time not going with USC or Cal for New Orleans if they run the table. My Pick- USC, Cal 2. SEC- Normally, the Southeastern Conference would be setting the agenda for how the top ten shapes up, and as long as Florida and LSU dominate, that will still be the case. However, there are some holes that have developed, particularly in the SEC West that spell trouble. Auburn is having an off year. While Alabama and Arkansas are still quite good, one would figure that one, if not both, would be two loss teams. Can South Carolina fill the Tennessee role and seriously threaten the Gators in the East. I'm not quite sold on LSU quite yet, but getting through unscathed would be a major accomplishment. My Pick- Florida, LSU 3. Big 10- The problems in Ann Arbor brings the strength of the conference down a notch or two. Ohio State and Penn State are shaping up to be BCS title game threats while Wisconsin is just behind them. Even with the horrific start, Michigan can still find their way to Pasadena with running the Big Ten table. The team that knocks off the Wolverines and the other Big 10 front-runner goes all the way. The big four all play each other this year. The team that wins all three gets the conference. The longer Penn State goes undefeated, the pressure will build to get them into one last championship game for Joepa. If they beat Ohio State, they win the Big 10. My Pick- PSU 4. Big 12- Conference wise, this is Oklahoma's to lose. If they beat Texas down in Dallas, they only need to stop Oklahoma State and whomever they get in the Big 12 Championship, Nebraska?, to go to New Orleans. Strong on both sides of the ball, the swager, not Charlie, is back in Norman. Texas has had too many non-conference close calls to not trip up at least once when conference play. Nebraska is still a year or two away from competing for the whole championship, they are getting there and in the weaker North, they have a realistic shot at the Fiesta Bowl. My Pick- Oklahoma* 5. Big East- You could nearly flip-flop this conference with the Big 12, but Louisville's loss to Kentucky changes the equation a bit. The conference is stronger, by far, than two seasons ago, South Florida and Cincinnati will make West Virginia, Rutgers, and Louisville sweat. On the other hand, with the talent at WVU and the chance of going undefeated, their berth in New Orleans is certain if, and that's a mighty big if, they beat the Scarlet Knights in Jersey and the Cardinals at home in back to back weeks. (EDIT-The sentence read wrong.) They are the east coast version of USC, very underrated and very good. My Pick- WVU* 6. ACC- They blew up the best conference in college basketball for this? Whomever wins the Boston College-Virginia Tech game in Blacksburg will be the favorite to win it again in Jacksonville. Yawn. My Pick- VT *= BCS Title Game Pick So, you possibly have Penn State/Ohio State, USC/Cal, Oklahoma, and West Virginia all going undefeated with LSU/Florida at one loss. What will we do? Enjoy it. That's what we will do. The knuckleheads who wish to institute a multi-team/week playoff forget that the regular season in college football is the most meaningful regular season in any level of sports, period. Most years, you have at most two undefeated teams, and if you look with your head and not your heart, a one loss team will jump out at you over some other one loss teams. My Solution- A plus one game. You play the bowl games as you always have and then take the best two teams from New Years and play them the week between the NFL Conference Champions and the Super Bowl, on the site of the Super Bowl, with this caveat, not at-large team that lost their conference title can play for the title, and only conference winners ranked in the BCS top ten get a major invite. If that means no automatic bid for a conference, oh well. I'm sure that most casual fans would rather see a third SEC team that finished at 11-1 than a crappy ACC winner at 7-5. And also, no automatic bid for Notre Dame for winning nine games. It's the 21st century, if the BCS means that much to the Irish, join a conference and earn your way in. Being second banana in the Big 10 or Big East is no slouch, and you would get an at large berth. The most competitive eight teams in the country would be playing the biggest games of the year, and will have won a game on a neutral site to earn the big berth. While shrinking the field from ten to eight may look less inclusive, matching eight teams based on being competitive gives the Boise State's of the world the same chance, and with a plus one game, you just never know.