Congratulations to the Oklahoma Sooners: 2008 National Champions!

My regular readers know that I'm firmly against a playoff in college football. What they don't know is that I'm in favor of eliminating the BCS system. That's because the BCS is actually a playoff, even it has only a two-team bracket.

About the only thing that makes less sense than a two-team playoff in a 119-team league is giving a bunch of 19 and 20-year-old college students a month of vacation before they play the game!

I want to get rid of the BCS and go old school...real old school. Let's go back to the pre-1966 era, when the national champion was declared in December—before the bowls.

The AP broke with tradition in 1966 and began publishing its final poll after the bowl games. The coaches refused to go along. For the next 10 years, the final Coaches' poll and the final AP poll were published at different times.

"The bowl games are only supposed to be a fun reward," said Woody Hayes. The coaches knew that the results of the bowl games weren't true indications of the quality of their teams.

Any athlete knows that a month layoff seriously affects your timing and rhythm. This is especially disruptive to the strict discipline and precise choreography required for the complex movements of 22 men on a football field.

Throw in the fact that you're dealing with a group of inexperienced kids who are taking finals and partying over the holidays, and you have a recipe for highly unpredictable results.

So, I'm declaring Oklahoma the National Champion right now. It pains me greatly to do so because I am a Florida fan.

Florida fans shouldn't complain. It was settled on the field when the Gators lost to Ole Miss. We could have been undefeated and won it all, but we failed to convert an extra point.

I'm not going to be another second place whiner. That's the kind of poor sportsmanship that forced the AP to start publishing its poll after the bowls. This was the critical first step that led to the current January playoff.

The whining will never stop until the playoff has 24 or 32 teams, just like NCAA basketball and Division I-AA football. This will destroy college football's unique do-or-die regular season and many of the traditions that go with it.

I know I'm fighting a losing battle, but Woody Hayes would be proud of me.

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