BCS Bowl Games Highlight Massive Need for Playoff

We are just one day away from the start of the BCS season in college football. There will be five games featuring 10 teams in the marquee games that we all pay attention to—unlike the other 30 that no one cares about. But when all is said and done, what does it really mean?

You know where I am going with this, because it is something that has been talked about since the inception of the BCS in 1998: A playoff needs to happen sooner rather than later. 

Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated made bold predictions for college football in 2012, and the first one that he talked about was how we could be closer to a "plus-one" system than we realize. 

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Several leagues were already leaning in the direction of a four-team playoff -- strategically called a "plus-one" so dim bulbs won't realize it's actually a playoff -- but when voters passed over Oklahoma State for an all-SEC rematch, the momentum finally swung in the direction of a bracketed tournament, even if it is a small one. Barring a major shift, no playoff would begin until the 2014 season, because the current BCS contract runs through the 2013 season. But because such change involves a lot of moving parts, the game's leaders will begin discussing format and execution of the plan in 2012.

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And even though the BCS system we have now is slightly better than what came before it, when teams were locked into bowl games there was virtually no chance No. 1 and No. 2 would play each other, there is no doubt that it is time to give the game the playoff system it deserves. 

Think about it: When Alabama and LSU play on January 9, what will we really know? Will it prove that somehow, someway one of those teams is better than Oklahoma State? 

Wouldn't you love to see the top four teams in the BCS this year—LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma State, Stanford—play this week with the winners locking up the following week?

The BCS system was fine when it first came along because it was something different. But it has proven to be a faulty and outdated way to determine which team really is the best in the country. 

Every other division in college football determines its champion with a playoff. The argument of preserving the integrity of the bowl games, which is what the BCS claims to be trying to do, is a joke.

It's a way of making sure that the NCAA makes a lot of money with television contracts and sponsors so we can watch the Little Caesar's Bowl or the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

In recent years, the BCS has done nothing but prove the need that Division I-A college football—and that's what I call it, not the FBS—has for a playoff system. 

There is nothing that will really be determined over the next nine days in the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and BCS Championship. The only thing that we will know is that five teams won games and will get big paychecks for it. We won't have any idea who the best team really is. 

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