Ya gotta be in the clique to roll with the BCS

Lately, college football has really excited me until the bowl season.  The BCS is total BS, if you ask me.  If no other season presents a compelling argument for the NCAA FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) to go to a playoff system, this one certainly does.  Even Boise State's coach, Chris Peterson, decided to publicly say something.  It all begins with the BCS Championship, which is a rematch between LSU and Alabama.  Of course Tide fans wanted this rematch but Oklahoma State fans believe the match-up is BS, because they believe a more compelling game would be the Big 12 champs versus the SEC champs.  Then there are the cases of the Houston, who seemed to be Sugar Bowl-bound until they lost the Conference USA championship, and Boise State, who is also a one-loss team.  Neither will be playing BCS bowls.  You can easily argue that Houston screwed themselves by losing to Southern Miss, a "lesser" opponent; but Boise State's track record speaks for itself, regardless of their loss this season.

If you ask me, these debates would be easily solved in a playoff format; but it's obvious the NCAA doesn't want that.  It boggles the mind, because I believe the NCAA has everything to gain by putting its biggest dogs in a playoff system.  It doesn't matter where these games would be played, the entire SEC, Big Ten, and Big 12 fan bases travel very well.  Other teams' fans, such as Boise State's, Houston's, USC's, and Florida State's travel very well, too.  But how embarrassing is it when a big dog such as Oklahoma loses to a "lesser" opponent such as Boise State (which is what happened in the '07 Fiesta Bowl)?

In 2010, the little frogs that could from the little school in Texas capped a 13-0 season by taming the ferocious badgers from the big school in Wisconsin.  Photo Credit: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

I understand, though.  Don't hate the player; hate the game.  This is all about money.  No matter how much sense we BCS opponents make (see great article links below), it's all about who is in whose pockets.  C'mon, you don't think this is about putting compelling college football on TV, do you?  If it were, we would have a playoff system just like the one that works so well in the FCS (Football Championship Subdivision formerly NCAA Division I-AA).  But I truly believe that this is about schools in the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, Big East, ACC, and PAC 12 being the have's and the schools in the WAC, Mountain West, MAC, and Conference USA being have not's.  With the former list of schools being automatic qualifiers for BCS bowls, it's easier to understand why there has been a mad scramble of institutions to hop into conferences that they believe will give them better chances at the pot o' gold at the end of the college football rainbow.  According to a 2008 article on Rivals.com, the BCS payed as much as $17 million a team at that time.  It's college football's version of the rich getting richer but the "poor" just not getting as much.  If it sounds a bit corrupt, I believe it is.  But remember this; people who benefit from corruption don't care what the rest of us think.

This is not about pure competition.  You already have the Boise State/Oklahoma example.  In 1998 my Tulane Green Wave ended a perfect season by slamming a "better" BYU team in the Liberty Bowl.  Last year TCU showed America what they were made of by defeating Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, which was truly ironic on the heels of Ohio State's president referring to schools like TCU and Boise State as "Little Sisters of the Poor" programs.  It's clear that if you give the Houston's of college football a chance in a playoff format, they could beat a Big Ten or Big 12 opponent.  The NCAA has everything to gain by leveling the playing field (pardon the pun) in a playoff system.  But I wonder who, in the NCAA, is going to have the balls to renegotiate this system which is so lucrative to the big dogs.

More great reading:

• "College football playoff plan" by Dan Wetzel (Rivals.com)
• "Here's Everything College Football Has to Gain by Scraping (sic) the BCS for a National Playoff" by Eric McErlain (BusinessInsider.com)