If you are a frequent viewer of ESPN, as am I, you know that soon we will begin seeing the commercial for Capitol One Bowl week in which the college football bowl season is advertised to the accompaniment of the classic Christmas song, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”  Yet for many college football fans, particularly those in Ann Arbor, it’s anything but.

For years we have been told by the powers-that-be the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was the solution for the problems that ailed college football in the eighties and early nineties.  The BCS was supposed to devise a solution in which a national champion was determined not solely by polls and human opinion.  Rather, the BCS would take into consideration computed elements such as strength of schedule and factor that into an overall ranking.  A novel concept that was supposed to create a more level and objective playing field across NCAA football has resulted in the same arguments we were hearing in the days of Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer and Tom Osborne.

The BCS, quite simply, is flawed.  It does not mathematically take into consideration whether or not a team is a conference champion.  If it did, UM would have played Oregon in the 2002 Rose Bowl.  It is further flawed by the fact that some teams have to play a final conference championship game and others do not.  Is it fair that Florida had to play Arkansas on December 2 while Ohio State safely stayed at home?

Yet even with computer formulas and mathematical equations, 2/3 of the BCS ranking is, in the end, determined by the human polls.  It still is too subjective.  Can anyone logically explain how Florida leap-frogged Michigan into the number 2 spot in the final poll?  Does not the fact that Jim Tressell, coach of topped ranked Ohio State, abstained from voting in the coaches’ poll so as to not create the perception of a particular preference raise a red flag?  And let’s not even get into the discussion of where teams from mid-major conferences belong in this conversation. 

The truth of the matter is that as long as the landscape among college conferences remains uneven, we will continue to have this debate.  Even with all the proposed 8 team playoff scenarios, there will always be a team that ranks ninth that will argue it got shunned out of the playoff picture.  

I believe the solution starts with every conference having at least 12 teams.  This may require the addition of teams from other mid-major conferences and, as a result, the elimination of those lesser conferences.  Every conference would have a championship game, and the conference champion would have an automatic berth into the BCS or playoff system.  The college football schedule would be reduced to 9 games to allow for a conference championship and playoffs, and rankings would not be determined until after week 4 of the season.

It's true, I have not thought out the details, and sure, it sounds like a lot of other proposals circulating the water cooler.  As is evident by this past football season, nothing – with the exception to Ohio State’s record – is perfect.  If it were, my Hurricanes would be planning a trip to Glendale, Arizona.