The BCS Bowl Report: What Happened to New Year's Day?

The BCS was supposed to preserve the bowl system while at the same time giving the nation a national championship.

Some pundits claim that major college football has never had a national champion due to its lack of a playoff.

I don't buy into that; I do believe in the regular season playoff format. I also believe a playoff would be better, but the system in place has revealed a national champion every year.

Sometimes, it revealed two national champs.

The argument that the BCS has given us the national champ is a circular debate without an end.

I think that the BCS has ruined the bowl system it was meant to protect. In 1991, there were eight New Year's Day Bowl Games. 2010 held five bowl games. The final day of 2009 also held five bowl games.

If you want to gauge just how useless bowl games are under the BCS, look at the Jan. 6 match-up of Central Michigan and Troy.

Are you kidding me?

Orange Bowl followed by the GMAC Bowl and then the National Championship Game? Did you want to be taken seriously, BCS?

How are the bowls still sacred when there is a Capital One Bowl Week?

You can keep all of those Capital One Bowl Week Bowls what they are and make the big bowls a part of the playoff. You only need seven bowls to make an eight-team playoff.

The Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta are already in. Add the majestic Cotton Bowl and Holiday Bowl to make six. You can still call it the BCS National Championship Game or you can throw in the Capital One Bowl to make seven.

Four, two and the final one for the title. It would be like starting from from the Elite Eight in March Madness.

That has proven itself to work, right?

You have to admire the coaches that go for the win. Robb Akey was right for the Idaho Vandals, while Pat Fitzgerald was wrong for the Northwestern Wildcats.

I don't think it is fair to judge them on what happens, judge them on going for it.

My favorite bowl game is the Rose Bowl and my favorite team, the Ohio State University, won it over the Oregon Ducks.

Jim Tressel used his game plan to keep the Oregon offense on the sidelines. Terrell Pryor led a balanced Ohio State attack to a Rose Bowl victory.

My next favorite bowl game is the Cotton Bowl. Dexter McClester led Ole Miss in place of the injured Jevon Snead for a repeat Cotton Bowl win over Oklahoma State.

Bobby Bowden won his final bowl game over West Virginia, while Joe Paterno led Penn State to a win over the SEC's LSU Tigers.

Brian Kelly and Mike Leach didn't coach their teams in bowl games. It is hard to say that Brian Kelly is worth 27 points and Texas Tech didn't seem to miss Mike Leach in their win over Michigan State.

So the BCS has three more bowl games (plus the GMAC Bowl) as the flawed system winds down another anti-climactic year.

Florida looks like they could compete in an eight-team playoff, as does Ohio State. TCU and Boise State are undefeated, so the winner of their Fiesta Bowl game will get a nice trophy.

Alabama and Texas will play for the title and they seem to be the two best teams this year, but we will never truly know.

And if the BCS is meant to save the bowl system, then play more New Year's Day Bowl Games. The current schedule caters to TV, so why not take it one step further and cater to your fans by creating a playoff?

It seems so simple, doesn't it?

So here are my conference power rankings going into the bowl season (and their number of bowl wins):

1. SEC (5)

2. Pac-10 (2)

3. Big 10 (2)

4. Big East (4)

5. Mountain West (4)

6. Big XII (4)

7. ACC (3)