BC"YES"

I'll get to my NFL picks tomorrow, but as for the big one today, I'll get on record saying Oklahoma +5, and over 70. Take it to the bank, son.

I guess the most interesting news of the morning, outside of the bizarre Jay Glazer pics, is that Oakland wants Orlando Cabrera. As for as the White Sox go, that's one of the last dominoes to fall this offseason. I think at this point Dye is probably safe, and that the only other move they'll make is to add a mid-level veteren starter. So more on that later, once stuff actually starts to happen.

TTCS' esteemed Phil Barnes asked yesterday if he could write something defending the BCS, and I thought his headline was rock solid, so here it is.

- Ricky

BY PHIL BARNES

A few hours before writing this I got in a huge two-on-none debate about just ridiculous the BCS actually is. While I am fairly certain my colleague Eli and I were victorious, I can't help but imagine what an opponent's argument would have been like. And to be honest, after thinking this through, believe it or not, the BCS does have its pros.

The next few hundred words will attempt to persuade people into a small percentage of others, who around New Year's Day just about every year, are shunned from society and looked upon as absolute fools; those who are in favor of the BCS.

I am curious, in what way did the BCS do wrong this year? The goal of the BCS is to put the top two teams at the end of the season in a matchup to determine the nations' best team. Am I wrong? Ultimately isn't that what we are here to see?

SEC-Champion Florida (12-1) was voted as the #1 team in the AP poll and #2 in the almighty Coaches poll while the more controversial team Big 12- Champ Oklahoma was voted as the #2 team in the AP and #1 in the Coaches poll.

So in both of the most respected polls in America, the BCS got it right. That should be the end of discussion.

But then there is this talk of a playoff. Why do we need a playoff?

To schools that truly expect to be playing a week after New Year's (and I don't mean the stupid GMAC game, and Ball St. thought they deserved a chance to play in a BCS bowl) every <i>game</i> should be treated like a playoff scenario.

Win and you're in. Lose and you no longer control your own destiny. Lose again, and you won't even be in consideration.

For the serious teams in contention, (Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, USC... Utah you cannot be included in this and I will explain later) three of the four should be unbeaten (Oklahoma and Texas played each other so somebody had to lose).

Florida lost to a Mississippi team that impressed people late while USC got beat by an Oregon State team they never should have lost to. Oklahoma lost to Texas and Texas lost to Texas Tech, a team that Oklahoma beat by 60.

My point with this is, all four teams lost the ability to choose their own destiny. Florida and Oklahoma should be gracious they got in, USC and Texas should be anything but bitter that they were snubbed (Though I will say USC more so than Texas.)

Should Texas have had the right to play in the Big 12 championship? Maybe? But that is not up to the BCS. Maybe the Big 12 should find a way to restructure their finale so the top two teams in the conference play each other, regardless of division, or something along those lines.

But this all goes back to making every game count. Why does the Texas secondary let Michael Crabtree catch that ball, let alone turn, and high-step 10 yards into the endzone? While Oklahoma did lose to Texas, the argument is they nullified that when they dropped 65 on the very same Texas Tech team that topped the Horns.

With this playoff everybody wants, this would surely hurt college football more than it would help. At the very least it would totally change the dynamics and old traditions. There is a simple reason for this; never before has college football been about second chances. College football has always been about the one (1) demoralizing loss. To me, in college football, you truly have to earn your national title. More so than any other sport. Especially college athletics.

Look at basketball, a sport with a post season that football fans for some odd reason can only dream of. But why? After a season is played, 64 teams have an equal opportunity of winning a title. Occasionally, teams with losing records have the same numerical odds of winning the title as a team that has withheld their #1 ranking throughout the season. And on some not-so-rare occasions a team that has won not much more than 70% of their games are donned "national champs".

There is no need to push the boundaries even further, and possibly give a team that initially doesn't even deserve a chance, a realistic opportunity to win. That #8-seed is an 8-seed for a reason.

Look at this season for example.

This year is probably the best example somebody could bring you as to why there <i>should</i> be an 8-team playoff. Seven teams were 11-1 and one was 12-0 going into the bowls. Can anybody outside of the state of Texas honestly, with a straight face, tell me that Texas Tech deserves a chance to potentially play of the national title? If you say yes you clearly didn't watch the dismantling job the Sooners put on them. That was their playoff game.

Oklahoma would have been #1 and Texas Tech would have (in the best scenarios for the Red Raiders, though surely a Big East and an ACC team would be included, bumping TT) been the 8. Do we really need to see a rematch? But numerically they would have a chance, something they don't deserve.

And like I said, this season offers what would be the best example of why people feel there needs to be a playoff, and for reason above, that shouldn't cut it.

Imagine if there was a playoff system in 2005. USC nor Texas should have to prove any more than they did during the season. But six other teams would have had an undeserving chance of playing for the national title.

The only way that a playoff could coincide with traditional football would be if four schools from major conferences finished their season at 12-0 and there was no other logical way to settle it but to have the four play in a plus-one playoff. The reason there needs to be four teams is because if there are only three, a one-loss team gets re-entered into the picture, when clearly, they weren't even in consideration but were given a second chance.

Now I said I would get to Utah, and here it is. Yes Utah went undefeated, I will applaud them for that. But everybody brings up the fact that they beat a few ranked teams. I am not sold on this for multiple reasons.

First off, to even be considered in national contention you have to beat ranked teams. Looking at their schedule before the Alabama game, they beat an overrated BYU and a decent TCU team. BYU was smoked by Utah at seasons-end and lost to TCU and other than that played nobody. TCU I give credit because they decided to go out and play a major-conference team (Oklahoma), where they were destroyed 35-10. And that was Utah's argument to make the title game? Other than Hawaii or the Citadel, Florida's opponents were all better teams than Utah's. And minus no more than two or three teams, the same can be said about Oklahoma.

So don't try to put Utah even in the same sentence. They beat one good team in Alabama so all of a sudden they should get title talks? That is one (1) quality win.

In order for Utah, a Mountain West Conference team, to ever have title hopes, they need to have their AD schedule no less than three nonconference games against schools who when the scheduling process began, looked like they had serious #1 ranked contention (TCU does not classify as #1 ranked contention).

Will that be hard for the AD to know ahead of time who is good? Yes of course. But he as well as the coaching staff should realize that the teams that did make the championship game this year had to play perennial powers almost on a weekly basis, not once every other month.