Does the BCS Need a Bailout After the Collapse of USC?

The nation's finest football team, USC, has collapsed overnight.

This meltdown has sent the college football markets into a state of confusion.

Until last night, almost none of the anointed college football ranking minds believed it was possible. In the most recent AP Poll, 62 of the 65 voting members had USC as the No. 1 team in the nation. Every ESPN analyst agreed, except Lou Holtz, who still thinks the Irish are playin' possum.

Earlier in the season several other big-time programs failed to deliver on promises to fans, and more disappointments are sure to follow. None will be as big or damaging to the country as the University of Southern California failing.

There is plenty of blame to go around, from Steve Sarkisian, the less than mediocre former BYU quarterback who convinced Pete Carroll he was better than his teacher Norm Chow, to Pete Carroll himself. A finger can also be pointed towards the former Heisman Trophy candidate Mark Sanchez and Joe "pigskin feels slippery to me" McKnight.

And where was the Ray Maualuga insurance policy that was purchased to protect the end zone? USC fans failed to read the fine print.

We can also legitimately feel animosity towards a failed BCS system that artificially props up the paper value of its owned football team assets and then works hard to sell these fixer-uppers with a fresh coat of paint to the unsuspecting public. Cheerleaders help ease the pain of being scammed.

The value of a football team is based on the relative value of the "comps," or closest comparisons. When Pac-10 teams are massively devalued by ESPN and AP because their loss "comps" occur in a non-BCS, non-ESPN contracted neighborhood like the Mountain West, it affects the resale value of their own teams after an in-conference upset.

Some radicals may say that the media made this bed of nails, and now they must lie in it.

Passing blame is not going to help get the nation's college football system back on it's feet. I suggest an alternative solution.

With this shocking instability in the college football market and the revealed collective incompetence of ranking regulators, is a complete BCS collapse possible?

In my opinion, the NCAA should implement emergency rule changes to retroactively make USC touchdowns worth 20 points each instead of the traditional measly six.

This simple adjustment to the regulations in football would quickly restore order and confidence in the national rankings. It may hurt some of the lesser Oregon State fans temporarily, but it is necessary to stabilize all college athletic programs.

We all know that the revenue from college football programs funds the rest of the athletics programs and even many academic programs.

An implosion of this institution signals an eventual failure of the American higher education system and eventually civilized humanity itself.

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