BCS might be no good - playoffs would be worse

Are we really supposed to believe that Ohio State is a better team than UCLA - or Tennessee, or Kansas State, or whoever - because 3.71 is a smaller figure than 5.70? Give me a break.

There is exactly one thing I want to happen with this brand-new, infallible Bowl Credibility System.

I want it to fail.

If there's one thing I'd love to see, it would be the absolute, unequivocal, indisputable, flat-on-its-face failure of the overhyped BCS. I'd like nothing better than to see Kansas State, Tennessee, Ohio State and UCLA finish their respective regular seasons undefeated. What could the statistical experts possibly say then?

Let's face it. No poll will ever be able to tell us which team is the best. No equation will ever determine the difference between Joe Germaine and Cade McNown's leadership abilities. No amount of analysis will ever defuse the ticking time bomb that the college bowl system. There is no Best-team Certification Scenario.

Not everyone agrees. Some people think the BCS is the answer. Penn State coach Joe Paterno - who has both won and been robbed of national titles thanks to the traditional bowl system - is not one of them.

"I don't even know how that thing works," Paterno said. "I'm a computer moron. And the power ratings, and other teams ... I have no idea. And I don't really care right now. I have absolutely no interest in it."

Plain and simple, there is one single, solitary way of determining which team really deserves to be No. 1. Everyone knows what it is. It's a playoff system.

And having said all that, I'll also say this: I hope it never happens.

I hope we never see a playoff system. College football is still unique, because the season actually determines the champion. The best team is determined not from the postseason, but from the actual season.

Maybe, with the bowl system, there isn't always a clear-cut winner on Jan. 2. Maybe it means there's no way to tell whether Michigan or Nebraska or Ohio State or UCLA is the better team. But as frustrating as that can be, I still think it's better than the alternative. I still think it's better to keep college football the way it was and has been.

If there were a playoff system, would September's Notre Dame-Michigan mean as much? Would November's Florida-Florida State be as much fun?

Would it be as much fun when, after 50 years of disappointment - after 50 years of coming oh-so-close - your team finally did make it all the way through the season without a single sullying loss?

I don't think it would. I don't think it would be the same if everything depended on a few games in December or January.

We've already got the NFL for that.

- Jim Rose can be reached at jwrose@umich.edu

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11-04-98