I knew the word “Strippers” would get your attention. Now that I have it, I won’t leave you totally hanging.

Have you ever been to a strip club and have one dancer catch your eye right away? You know right there and then that she will be yours by the end of the night…for $20.  So you wait a while. You keep your eye on her and even send other dancers away for fear of upsetting her. When you finally ask her to dance for you, she makes you feel like the only guy in the room, even though you know your buddy is two feet away with a visible woody. She has you dropping $20 bills like they’re Monopoly money by promising to show you more the next $20… I mean song. At the end of the night, you actually think she likes you and have hopes of getting her phone number . Then reality sets in and you notice that she is actually ignoring you. She is avoiding you like the plague. She got what she needed. You feel used. So your hopes die and you head for home. Now that you know how jbold1 and TiffanyMarie met (just kidding), I will tell you how this pertains to the BCS.

Every other sport in college athletics has some type of tournament or playoff at the end of the year. Women's Badminton probably has a playofff system. Anyway, that means that the teams involved know that their destiny is in their hands and not at the fingertips of a nerd with a keyboard. What the BCS has done is turned DI football into the football world’s equivalent of a strip club. They have figured out how to consistantly screw the teams and the fans out of what they want the most… a legitimate National Champion, and make them come back for more. 

The BCS starts off by teasing you with the rankings. Will your team make it to the title game? No. Well, maybe they’ll make another BCS game. So they're playing in the “Who the Hell Cares Bowl” on December 20th (Sorry, Southern Miss and Arkansas State), huh?  They have managed to get you excited about your team’s total lack of any chance of winning a National Title, but the sanctity and history of the bowl system has stayed intact, so you’re going along with it all. You think the BCS likes you.

So you watch your team play well in the “Does Anyone Know We’re Playing? Bowl” and you can’t help but wonder how they’d do against USC’s weak defense. How would your stud linebackers do against Reggie Bush? Thanks to the BCS, unless your team is ranked in the top two by their totally ridiculous system, you will never know. Maybe next year?  The BCS whispers in your ear, “Plus One. Plus One”. So you come back for more.

All the while, every other division in college football is wrapping up their playoffs and Mount Union has won their 8th REAL National Title in the last 13 years. You are left wondering what that must be like…to win it on the field by actually beating a string of teams AFTER the regular season is over.  

So you end up watching the USC vs. Texas game on January 4th, just like the BCS wants you to. Texas stuns USC by beating them handily, boring you to death in the process, and again you ponder the “what ifs”. The BCS has managed to milk you out of dozens of hours of your life that you will never have back. You feel used. That ####!!

The BCS is just like a stripper.  It lures you in with  the promise of a true National Champion, but in the end, you end up bitter and alone with your t-shirt from the “Inaugural Aunt Flo Tampax Bowl”. And just like a stripper, the BCS sponsors and their friends (Big Conferences) walk away with all of the money. 

Until the Athletic Directors and school Presidents get their heads out their behinds, we will continue to be teased by every incarnation of the BCS that can be thrown at us. They know that a playoff system is the right thing to do, but that would mean breaking ties with the big conferences and the risk of having to sell a second round game at Miami of Ohio to America. What they don’t understand is that America is all about fair competition. We all want our shot. They make it so that the Eastern Michigans of the world are out of it before the first snap of their season. They have no chance to truly compete for a title. Sure, even in a playoff system, teams like EMU would be a hell of a long shot, but at least they’d have A shot.