Nine Weeks Into The College Football Season: It's That Time Again!

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Once again its time for the BCS Championship "Ghouls and Goblins" to cast their spells, and inflate their Ego by telling us all the reasons an undefeated Big East Team, an undefeated Big Ten team, (except Ohio State, Penn State, or Michigan), or one of those other teams from a 2nd rated conference, do not deserve to play for the National Championship.

It happens every year this year is no exception.

All the network college football gurus, most of who have ties to the SEC, PAC-10, Big-12, ACC, or the Big-10, will fill up your Saturday morning sports shows with dozens of opinionated reasons why a 12-0 Cincinnati or a 12-0 Iowa should not play for the National Championship.  It's the same every year.  Sometimes I think they just roll over to past years scripts from November and use those as their "copy".

Last time I looked at the FBS Standings it included 11 conferences and 3 independents.  Never, have I seen any annotations’ or asterisks’ identifying one conference having more entitlements than another.

These FBS conferences have fallen victim to more breakups than David Letterman and his Interns.  No seriously, The BCS (whomever that is, I get conflicting reports) has chopped the division almost by half.  The self-proclaimed college football gurus, have taken an additional slice out of that BCS pie.  The BCS divides the division in half allowing only six out of the eleven conferences to receive automatic births for BCS Bowl games.  The other five, well, they get to vie for no more than one spot.  So the BCS has in fact taken Division 1 college football and created a new separate entity; The BCS Conference.

Now, this network guru’s have shelved the BCS plan and want more.  They have a special team bucket that includes the perennial powerhouses of college football.  These teams have been placed on such a high pedestal or bucket that these guru's believe a two loss team that comes from that bucket is truly more deserving of National Championship fame than an undefeated Big East or a “BCS Division 2 team”.  You see there are no Big East or “BCS Division 2” teams in that bucket.  As a matter of fact the teams in that bucket only include: Six from the Big-12, three from the Big-10, eight from the ACC, four from the Pac-10, and anyone from the SEC except a Vandy, and the Mississippi's.  Yep that's their "bucket-list".  It doesn't matter what type of "out of conference" schedule a Florida, Oklahoma, or Ohio State plays.  They are deserving of a home in the special bucket, therefore, allowed an extra loss or two.  They have tradition, which has to count for something, right?

So what has happened to Division 1 college football since the BCS?  Division 1 (FBS) has become in fact three separate divisions.  Being of very competitive nature, I do not understand why the "snubbed" conferences continue to put up with or allow it.  Imagine a 3 or 4A High School being told, "You can play in division 4A, but, do not qualify to play for the championship."    Now I'm not stupid I know the five letter word that sits in the back of the mind of the Presidents at each and everyone of these non-championship-eligible schools.  "Money", a subject that I know rests at the top but I refuse to tackle.

Could it be time that these schools formulate a plan to break away from the self-proclaimed elite and start a new division?  A division in which there is no biased rankings, and no bucket-list for the honor to play for national champion.  It is given strictly to those who deserve it.

I never recall the intensity of these debates in the pre-BCS era.  Yea there was no specifically named championship game. But there was always a National Champion, based strictly on number one in the final polls.  Remember 1988 two independents Notre Dame and West Virginia battled for the National Championship at the Fiesta Bowl?  Would this or could this happen today?  Could an undefeated Navy and an undefeated Notre dame (Yea, I know they play each other) play for the National Championship under the BCS and Bucket List Regime?  I think not.

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