The BCS: If You Win A Strong Schedule, You Should Get In The Big Game

We've been ranting about this for a year now, but we'd like to put forward a simple plan that will make for a better regular college football season and put an end to the whining about not being in the National Championship Game.

We think that 60% of the BCS decisions should be made on strength of non-conference schedule, not on the AP Voters' decisions. Then, 30% should be made on the strength of the conference, and 10% should be left to the stupid AP voters, of whom we've never been fans.

The reason why we're not going on higher for in-conference strength-of-schedule is that there's little that ADs can do about a tough, mediocre, or easy schedule. In other words, we're not about to blame the fact Florida didn't face Alabama in the pre-season on the Gators.

On this system, if Texas and Florida had gotten into the National Championship Game after playing the equivalent of the New Orleans School for the Blind, it would have an absolute travesty.

Texas' downfall in 2008 was essentially the fault of themselves. They didn't bother playing anyone good, and it hurt them at the end-of-season polls. In fact, it should have hurt the Longhorns in 2009, and favoured TCU, who at least didn't play crappy teams.

Alabama would have 'made it'—who played most of their non-conference games against crappy schools—because Saban & Co put Virginia Tech on its schedule first thing. And things don't look so bad for the lads from Tuscaloosa in the next two years, given a home-and-home against the Penn State Nittany Lions.

Speaking of Penn State, it could have been 'roses' had managed wins against Ohio State and Iowa. The fact that they played NOBODY in their offseason schedule should have stood against them. But it didn't.

I know many people favoring the current system can argue that stunning upsets like Appalachian State's win over Michigan in 2005 can happen, but at the end of the day, upsets like these are few and far between.

At the end of the day, if college football does not have playoffs, it's got to sort out its regular season. And more games like Alabama-Virginia Tech, Oregon-Boise State, USC-Ohio State and Georgia-Oklahoma State would make college football a far better product and lead to fewer arguments come BCS time.

Oh, and atmospheres like the one we had in Atlanta at the start of September.