Everybody talks about the BCS, but nobody does anything about it.
The local weather forecast remains persistent: ice cold. The college-football forecast seems permanent: murky bordering on conspiratorial.
Recent polls indicate that anywhere from 63 percent (Quinnipiac University) to 90 percent (Sports Illustrated) favor vaporizing the BCS system, which relies on computer formulas to match Hypothetical No. 1 vs. Hypothetical No. 2.
President Obama wants a playoff. Sen. Orrin Hatch, burned by Utah's 2008 exclusion, hints that colleges deserve to lose some antitrust protections.
Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican with a conspiratorial tilt, introduced a bill that would ban the BCS from declaring a champion without a playoff. The BCS' alleged reforms made it easier for outside-the-club protesters Boise State and Texas Christian to cash BCS checks at the Fiesta Bowl, but Barton took a whiff of pressure-relieving concessions and smelled a cunning rat.
While introducing his bill last May, Barton observed: "They keep trying to tinker with the current system, and to me it's still -- and I don't mean this directly -- it's like communism. You can't fix it. I think they should change the name to BES -- Bowl Exhibition Series -- or just drop the E and call it the BS system, because it isn't about determining a champion on the field."
The BCS will crown the winner of tonight's Alabama-Texas game, although the winner deserves nothing more than the title of mythical champion. If anyone questions that logic, send them to the 2003 record books. The BCS' No. 1 team, Oklahoma, courted illegitimacy by losing the Big 12 to Kansas State 35-7. No. 2 LSU, a 12-point underdog, confirmed those doubts while beating the Sooners 21-14. Southern Cal, first in the AP but third in the BCS before the bowls, won the Rose Bowl and the AP title, thus creating a split championship.
This bowl season, unbeaten Boise State (No. 6) earned a debater's soap box by shutting down previously unbeaten TCU (No. 4). A cardboard box made in New Porcelain, China -- this is 2010, hoss -- does not equal a crystal trophy shaped like a football, and the Broncos' tinny pleas will fall on mostly deaf ears outside the Western Athletic Conference.
However you come down on the main question, the BCS' intellectual foundation has the teetering quality of a pig dancing along the rim of the trough. Just consider how narrowly Texas slipped into the show.
At the Big 12 championship, trailing Nebraska 12-10 with time running out and a field goal within reach, quarterback Colt McCoy dawdled before firing an incomplete pass out of bounds. The clock kept ticking until it expired. As Nebraska celebrated, fear gripped Coach Mack Brown's face. He looked like a deer frozen in the headlights of an intergalactic battleship, or a $5 million coach ordered back to Tulane for $60,000 a year.
Brown later claimed that he was sure 1 second remained. Big 12 replay judges rescued the lost second, using a clock superimposed over TV video to show that the ball struck the railing on a sideline luxury suite an instant before time ran out. The clock runs until the ball hits something -- an esoteric detail that McCoy didn't know.
Hunter Lawrence hurried out and kicked the 46-yard winner, which left the Nebraska coach fuming about conference favoritism with the top BCS slot on the line.
What if the video tricks hadn't produced a clear picture and given Texas a final shot? What if the kicker had missed?
Cincinnati finished third in the BCS standings before losing its coach to Notre Dame and its Sugar Bowl to Florida, 51-24. A similar flop against Alabama with everyone watching might have accelerated the playoff push.
But that's probably just wishful thinking, because the BCS chose elite greed over thoughtful fairness years ago.
lrawlings@wsjournal.com
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