Beating a dead (BCS) horse

We interrupt this regularly scheduled program to do some more moaning and groaning about the BCS...


Great game last night and all, but a question:

How come no one asked Roger Goodell if the NFL is interested in taking a look at a BCS-style system?

We hear so much resistance to an "NFL style playoff system" from college presidents and conference commissioners, and we hear about how great the BCS is with all its polls and computers and all that.

If it's so great -- or even if it's merely defensible -- how come we never hear of anyone clamoring to adopt such a system?

I'm trying to imagine what a press release from the BCS would look like in response to the argument that the NFL playoff system actually, you know, works.

FRAUD GIANTS WIN SUPER BOWL; BCS SYSTEM VINDICATED

OUTER SPACE -- For the first time since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule in 1978, a team with fewer than 10 regular-season won the Super Bowl. This is an outrage that exposes the NFL's system as fundamentally flawed.

The Giants were not the best team in the NFL. They merely got hot at the right time. Under the BCS system, such a travesty never would have happened.

We at the BCS are still trying to decipher this bizarre, complicated model of "settling it on the field." We would advise the NFL to do the sensible thing and incorporate a bunch of computers, matrixes and algorithms so that America's Average Joes can understand and relate to the system. It also wouldn't hurt to institute a poll that allows PR people for each team to covertly cast votes in place of their head coaches. And maybe even another poll that gives a vote to people who might or might not have actually watched the games.

We would like to make it known that our lawyers are available should the Green Bay Packers elect to challenge a broken system that did not award the Super Bowl crown to the team that had the best regular season. Sure, the Packers were completely drilled by the Giants at home in this laughable "settle it on the field" system, but what truly matters is the regular season.

It's similar to that ridiculous "settle it on the court" system employed by college basketball. We've heard windbags claiming that a 65-team tournament is a good way to determine a champion, and we chuckle at that.

Were it up to us, UNLV would be awarded the 1991 national title. That dramatic Duke victory over the Runnin' Rebels in the semifinals? A mere exhibition. Because clearly UNLV had long since established itself as the best team. The Blue Devils merely got hot at the right time.

We also need to retroactively award several more national titles to North Carolina and Kansas, because several of their teams established themselves as the best in college basketball before they happened to choke in the "settle it on the court" format.

We believe the Packers deserve this season's Super Bowl title, but we'd entertain some argument for the Washington Redskins because they beat the Giants twice during the regular season.

LW