Why the Winner of Alabama-Texas Isn't a True "National Champion"

13-0 vs 13-0.  SEC running vs Big 12 spread. 1 vs 2.  Alabama vs Texas.  Roll Tide vs Hook 'em Horns. The first "Game of the Decade." The winner of this game will get to hold the crystal football and call themselves the 2009-2010 NCAA FBS (a.k.a. Division 1-A) National Champion and will have gone through their season perfect.  Undefeated. 14-0.

But what about the other undefeated team, the Boise State Broncos?  They are 14-0, too.  But they won't be the national champs.

Or what about the one-loss Florida Gators, Cincinnati Bearcats, or TCU Horned Frogs?  Why can't they get a shot?

It's simple.  Those four teams don't get a shot at that trophy because people and computers didn't vote them No. 1 or 2. 

Most people would have said that Texas and Alabama were the best two teams this season, as they come from arguably the best two conferences in college football.  I would have too, in fact, I was hoping for this game during conference championship week.  But just because it would be a good game, doesn't mean it's necessarily for the national championship.

Why?  Because the winner is just the subjective champion not the true champion.  The only way to fix this is...yes, Jim Mora, I'm talkin' about playoffs. Sure, the teams that get selected to the tournament would be subjective, but then again so are the ones selected in the Big Dance of college hoops. 

The format would be simple.  The top-16 teams in the BCS standings (yes, it would be good for something ) would be entered into the bracket, just like one region of the NCAA basketball tourney.  No automatic bids, just rankings.  Then settle it on the field in December, ending with the true "granddaddy of them all": the real national championship game.

But what about the bowl games?  All 34 of them.  I'm sorry, but that is too much for me.  I'm sure we can get rid of the famous New Mexico Bowl or St. Petersburg Bowl or the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl (especially because San Diego gets two bowl games a year, what's up with that?). 

The bowl games could be the NIT of college football.  If you don't make the dance, you can still play postseason ball in the Peach Bowl (wait, it's the Chick-fil-a Bowl now?) or the Gator Bowl or the Alamo Bowl.  The bowls could be played during the weekdays of December, while the playoff games could be played on Saturdays. 

I don't see what's wrong with this.

Some could claim that the current BCS bowls won't make as much money since the likely conference champion would be in the tournament.  Well, then the second round of the tournament could have each game played at that particular bowl.  The winners of those "bowl games" would move on to college football's final four and you should be able to figure out the rest. 

FBS football is the only major sport in America that settles its champion based on votes and not with a tournament of some sort.  Playoff systems work for FCS, Division II and Division III (shout-out to the UWW Warhawks), so why can't they work in the highest level of the sport?  Some could argue that the regular season wouldn't be as important. 

Well, if you have a poor regular season, you wouldn't make the playoffs.  Simple as that.

The BCS was formed so that there wouldn't be co-champions as there was in 1997 with Michigan and Nebraska both running the table. Well, in 2003, USC, LSU, and Oklahoma finished the season with one loss. 

LSU and Oklahoma (even though Oklahoma LOST it's conference championship game) battled it out in the Sugar Bowl with LSU winning 21-14.  USC settled for the Rose Bowl and won 28-14 over Michigan.  The Coaches' Poll awarded LSU the national championship, but the AP poll gave it to USC. 

The first, and so far, only time that the polls disagreed after the bowl games had been played. With a playoff system, there would be no co-champions.

The playoffs would also give a "Cinderella" team a chance to win it all.  A BCS buster such as a Boise State, TCU, Utah, or Hawaii would be given a shot to win the title.  George Mason made the Final Four in 2006, so why couldn't a small school in football get a chance to win the title?

Who's to say that a playoff wouldn't give us our current outcome for the national title game?  But the only way to know for sure would be to give what many of the fans want.  Champions shouldn't be determined by a popularity vote, but by settling it on the field of play.

(photo copyright of ESPN)