BCS or Playoff: What Needs to be Fixed in College Football

Every year you hear it from some coach who has no business talking about anything other than his team: "We need a playoff system in college football." And every year I sit back and laugh, because I know it's a waste of breath.

Allow me to play the devil's advocate if you will. The NCAA Bowl Championship Series sub-division—more commonly referred to as the Division I-A, however wrong it may be—play a series of games in early January called the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The BCS is seen by most as a flawed system, but I just can't see the problem.

Okay, Auburn fans…we know about 2004. But other than that one season, when has the BCS been wrong? I can only think of one other time that it is possible—but nobody from the South can say that it was wrong in 2003 because we all bash West Coast football.

The BCS does exactly what it was designed to do: put number one against number two in a championship game. I remember when that was a rarity. The system has performed each year, and we've crowned a legitimate national champion in eight seasons.

If you think a playoff system is the best way to determine a champion, fine. But I know that once those two teams reached the finals, they would not be at their best due to fatigue, not to mention final exams just being completed.

Mental and physical fatigue makes players not as good in the long run. Football players must be rested; it's a collision sport and people get hurt—it's part of the game.

Not only does fatigue wear on players, but it wears down fans too. It would be difficult for fans to go to any games that were not in their home stadium. If the system used the bowl sites, you wouldn't have half of the seats full, and we know ESPN couldn't handle that.

But if you thought your team was good enough to make the championship game—and let's be honest, we all think that—you would want to save your money for the title game. But what if that team doesn't end up making it? Then you missed out on an opportunity to see a game that otherwise in the BCS you would have known for sure that you would have seen.