BCS Rankings: Latest Standings Confirm Necessity of College Football Playoff

The evidence in favor of a college football playoff continues to pile up, with the latest BCS rankings serving as yet another exhibit in that ongoing case.

Because, clearly, the college football regular season isn't the week-to-week playoff that BCS proponents have long lauded and, frankly, it never really has been.

If that were the case, then how could Alabama possibly be on track to play for the national title after already blowing its chance against LSU in early November? How could Arkansas get squeezed out of the national title picture by LSU and Alabama, even if it beats the Tigers on Friday? How could two teams from the same division in the same conference be picked to play for the national title when only one "earned" its way in?

And how could Stanford, which isn't likely to reach the Pac-12 Championship Game, be in better position to play for the crystal football than Oregon after the Ducks supposedly "eliminated" the Cardinal from contention just last week?

Granted, such scenarios could just as easily arise if the NCAA were to put together some sort of playoff system with 10, 12 or even 16 teams competing for the ultimate prize.

The big difference, of course, is that the scores would be settled and the issues ironed out by the players on the field, not the voters attempting to qualify and the computers doing their darndest to quantify the strength of each and every team involved.

There would be no fear of voter manipulation or blind reliance on an obscure set of mysterious calculations that account for strength of schedule in one way or another.

Instead, fans could be treated to a real postseason, using Dan Wetzel's plan or even a plan that incorporates the existing BCS structure to decide who the champion should be.

Last time I checked, championships are meant to be won on the field of play, not at the ballot box or in the computer lab. We too often, and perhaps too readily, forget that college football is still the only sport in this country that goes out of its way to ensure that the "best" team is also the team that hoists the trophy at season's end.

If that were the case in all other sports, then the St. Louis Cardinals wouldn't be World Series champs, the Green Bay Packers wouldn't have won the Super Bowl with a 10-6 regular-season record and the Connecticut Huskies, rather than embarking on a remarkable run through the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, would've been disqualified from the competition by virtue of finishing ninth in their own conference.

Rather than allowing the best in the land to sort things out on the field, we're left to wonder what could have been. The confusion and controversy created by the plethora of one-loss teams in the current field could be sorted out on the field in a way that's satisfying, if not downright exciting, for the players, the coaches, the university presidents and, most importantly, the fans.

Of course, nothing of the sort is going to happen unless there's some way to placate the powers that be in the BCS, to satiate their undying thirst for profit on the cheap labor of "student-athletes."

But a kid can dream, can't he? Or at least hope that the current BCS nightmare, if it holds up, will be enough to steer the conversation in a different direction?

Rank	Team	BCS Average
1	LSU	.9933
2	Alabama	.9642
3	Arkansas	.9099
4	Oklahoma State	.8755
5	Virginia Tech	.8400
6	Stanford	.7974
7	Boise State	.6935
8	Houston	.6755
9	Oklahoma	.6747
10	Oregon	.5959
11	Kansas State	.567
12	South Carolina	.528
13	Georgia	.497
14	Michigan State	.453
15	Michigan	.439
16	Wisconsin	.382
17	Clemson	.333
18	Baylor	.295
19	Penn State	.252
20	TCU	.245
21	Nebraska	.230
22	Notre Dame	.136
23	Georgia Tech	.120
24	Auburn	.079
25	Texas	.071