ShareThisSo the BCS has its two-team playoff bracket, and that's that.
College football's official winner will be Oklahoma or Florida, both good teams, to be sure, but not clearly better than Texas or Southern Cal or even Penn State or Utah or Boise State without proving it on the field, which, of course, they won't have to.
These are all one-loss teams, except for Utah and Boise, which haven't lost at all. But undefeated only counts in the BCS if it's one of their own. Never mind that the Mountain West and WAC have more compelling champions this year than the ACC or Big East.
Here at the fictional Bowl Championship Playoff, we don't have this problem. You may recall that in the absence of a college football playoff, we are, over several weeks, imagining one. My colleague, Rocky deputy sports editor Kevin Huhn, calls this fantasy football, but I don't know, that sounds familiar.
Tell you what: We aren't shunting off Boise's unbeaten Broncos to the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, as the BCS did. If you're having trouble finding it on your schedule, it's right between the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl (Troy vs. Southern Mississippi) and the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl (Notre Dame vs. Hawaii). Not to mention reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger.
It is not just that this odd relegation gives Boise less exposure than it deserves after going 12-0. It does the same to its opponent. TCU's only losses came to Oklahoma and Utah, combined record: 24-1.
In the BCS, Boise and TCU play a meaningless pre-Christmas exhibition. In the BCP, they have a shot at a championship.
Elsewhere, the other 11 conference champions get automatic bids to the playoff. Our selection committee awards the remaining five at-large bids. Then it assigns a seed to each, setting up the playoff bracket.
Oklahoma's victory over Missouri in the Big 12 championship saved us the headache of trying to shoehorn four Big 12 teams into a 16-team bracket. The committee was sorry to lose previously unbeaten Ball State in the MAC championship game, but that's the way ball bounces, especially when you fumble it four times.
So we started with the 11 conference champions: Oklahoma (Big 12), Florida (SEC), Southern Cal (Pac-10), Penn State (Big Ten), Cincinnati (Big East), Virginia Tech (ACC), Utah (Mountain West), Boise State (WAC), East Carolina (Conference USA), Buffalo (MAC) and Troy (Sun Belt).
There was surprisingly little controversy over the five at-large bids, which went to Texas, Alabama, Texas Tech, Ohio State and TCU.
There were arguments for Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, Oregon and Georgia, but each had three losses and none of the actual selections had more than two. There was even an argument for Ball State, based on its 12-1 record, but having subjected the tournament to five-loss Buffalo, the Cardinals didn't get much sympathy.
To seed the bracket and establish the first-round matchups, the committee was guided by The Associated Press poll, having outlawed the use of computers when the discredited BCS was abandoned.
The big conferences used the presence of Buffalo and four-loss Troy to argue -- again -- that small conferences were over-represented in the BCP.
While this argument clearly had merit in the case of the Bulls and Trojans, the excluded major conference teams weren't that compelling. It's hard for a three-loss team to get much traction in the national championship debate.
Besides, having rejected first-round byes for the top teams in building the system, the BCP felt that Troy and Buffalo were the next best thing.
So here's the first round of our imaginary playoff. We will play it in the week leading up to Christmas, with the second round set for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
-- New Mexico Bowl: No. 1 Florida (12-1) vs. No. 16 Buffalo (8-5).
-- St. Petersburg Bowl: No. 2 Oklahoma (12-1) vs. No. 15 Troy (8-4).
-- Las Vegas Bowl: No. 3 Texas (11-1) vs. No. 14 East Carolina (9-4).
-- New Orleans Bowl: No. 4 Alabama (12-1) vs. No. 13 Virginia Tech (9-4).
-- Hawaii Bowl: No. 5 Southern Cal (11-1) vs. No. 12 Cincinnati (11-2).
-- Motor City Bowl: No. 6 Penn State (11-1) vs. No. 11 TCU (10-2).
-- Emerald Bowl: No. 7 Utah (12-0) vs. No. 10 Ohio State (10-2).
-- Alamo Bowl: No. 8 Texas Tech (11-1) vs. No. 9 Boise State (12-0).
We're just hoping that if Joe Pa falls down, he gets back up.
(Contact Dave Krieger of the Rocky Mountain News at kriegerd(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)
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