BCS Rankings Fail Again: Auburn, Oregon and TCU are All Championship-Worthy

The Auburn Tigers and the Oregon Ducks will play in the Tostitos BCS National Championship game on Jan. 10, 2011. However, these are not the only undefeated teams in America, Texas Christian University (TCU), is also undefeated, and is just as deserving to play for the national title.

Division I college football is the most poorly run sport in America. It's the only sport where you can have multiple undefeated teams, but only two gain the right to play for the national title.

TCU has one of the top three defenses in the country, and an offense that can score a lot of points through the air, and on the ground.

The knock on TCU is that they do not play a challenging enough schedule, they are currently members of the Mountain West Conference.

TCU is more than worthy to play in the national title game, but the current BCS system has prevented them from proving their real talent.

There is no doubt Oregon and Auburn are two of the best teams in the country. Both schools have Heisman hopefuls leading them at the skilled positions, running back LaMichael James of Oregon and quarterback Cam Newton of Auburn.

These two teams lead explosive offenses into the national title game, and the contest is almost certain to be quite exciting.

But for TCU, they must settle for a likely Rose Bowl invitation, where their opponents would likely be the Wisconsin Badgers.

The BCS computer ranking system has been criticized so much since its inception over a decade ago, and once again it has failed.

Many fans and experts think TCU is not better or even as good as Oregon and Auburn, but if they can't face each other in a playoff type game, we'll never know if TCU could beat the elite teams from the Pac-10 and SEC.

Schools from non-BCS conferences have gotten into BCS bowl games several times in the past few seasons, and nearly all of them won.

In past seasons, Utah has beaten Alabama, Boise St. has beaten Oklahoma and Utah has beaten Pittsburgh.

These supposedly inferior teams have proven they can beat the BCS schools in major bowl games. If TCU wins their BCS bowl and finishes the season unbeaten, they should receive a share of the national title.

It's not fair to the TCU seniors who will never play another game, to tell them they cannot be the national champions even though they were never beaten in 2010.

A playoff system would work in college football for a number of reasons. Each BCS conference ends its season by the first week of December, and the BCS bowl games do not start until Jan. 1.

The weeks in between are plenty of time to have a three- or two-round playoff system, where the six or four highest ranked BCS teams could play in a playoff format. 

Adding one or two games to the schedule will not tire the players, and it will help them adjust to the 16-game NFL schedule they will play as professionals.

It's too late for the 2010 TCU Horned Frogs, but we must take their situation this season as a reason to improve the system in which college football decides its champion.

The BCS National Championship game next month between Oregon and Auburn will produce a winner that deserves to be called champions. But unfortunately, they won't be the only team able to call themselves champs.