BCS Football: In the Wake of Selection Sunday We Defend the Red-Headed Stepchild

Under the “take the top eight teams” theory, they'd be denied, and for the exact aforementioned reasons, would have a very legitimate gripe. The message that would send is: It doesn't even matter if you win all of your games, you still don't even get the right to compete for the National Championship.

Ohio State is ranked 10th. Other than a brutal loss to the USC Trojans, they've done nothing to warrant being kept out of the chance to even compete for a Championship other than taking the Big Ten Champions (who, by the way, would be in) down to the wire.

Even if we have a panel select all eight teams, that still doesn't even come close to ensuring that the eight most deserving teams would be invited. Nepotism transcends generations.

Therefore, the 16-team format would have to be adopted. It would allow all the conference champions to compete, which would be the proper way to conduct a playoff, and would allow teams who finished a close second a chance to prove they are just as good.

However, we're led back to the questions of “who determines who happens to go,” etc. It also leads to a questions of logistics.

The next question would be: Where are these games going to be played? The popular idea seems to be home games (a la aforementioned Mr. Wetzel). However, again, glaring issues arise and are not addressed.

Who gets the home games? The obvious answer seems to be the higher seeded team. But, that's too simple of an answer.

Let's take Utah as an example. They're a team that has won every game they've played. They've won convincingly. Their conference beat up everyone. They'd also, more likely than not, be a lower seed.

They'd have a legitimate gripe. As a reward for beating everyone, they get to go on a marathon road trip? While on the flip side, their first round opponent, who would more than likely be an at-large bid, gets rewarded for not even winning their conference with the opportunity to stay at home.

Just as perturbing to the traveling school, would be the loss of revenue. Again to Utah, their prize for beating everyone? They get the smaller share of the gate as a visiting team.

The next obvious solution: Play all of the games on neutral sites. That's how the NCAA Basketball Tournament does it, and they get great results. Again, this is far easier said than done, and all the questions that I am about to pose are left unanswered by supporters of a playoff.

First, who hosts these games? If the sites are determined more than a year in advance, which one would think they'd have to be, what happens if a team involved in, say, the Final Four, happens to be hosting it as well? Do they get a larger cut? If not, why? Who determines which teams play where? None of these questions is unimportant and none ever gets answered when people argue for a playoff.

Second, many schools aren't going to want to go to any stadium where there is any sort of disadvantage, real or perceived. Ball State didn't even want to take a guaranteed pay day, national exposure for their franchise, and a very winnable matchup against Boise State in the Humanitarian Bowl.

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