By Christopher Gabriel, Blog Harbor 

If it’s the first week of January, it must be time for the Ohio State Buckeyes to get slapped, spanked and sent home by yet another SEC football team in the BCS championship game.  Last year, it was Florida.  You’ll recall Ohio State ran back the opening kick-off for a touchdown . . . and that was pretty much it.  The Gators barely blinked and proceeded to toy with the Buckeyes like they were a Pop Warner team.

But tonight — tonight would be different.  That’s what the Buckeyes told us.  Tonight, the Buckeyes would show everyone that last year was just one of those nights.  Tonight, we would see that LSU wasn’t faster and the SEC wasn’t better.  Tonight, the Buckeyes would show the world that this time around, they meant business . . .

Tonight has come and gone and what we had was the college football version of Neil Simon’s Same Time, Next Year.  No different than last year’s quick 7-0 lead the Buckeyes again jumped out early, this time to the tune of 10-0, and for the briefest of moments you almost believed the Buckeyes that tonight would indeed be different.  Then you saw the faces of LSU: Ho-hum, big deal, who cares.  Ultimately, the early deficit only served to get LSU angrier as they proceeded to dominate Ohio State scoring the next 31 points on the way to a 38-24 win that was not nearly as close as it seems.  And by the way, if you’re scoring at home the Buckeyes are now 0-9 all-time in bowl games versus the SEC.  But worse than that, they now have lost national championship opportunities to the SEC three times over the past year (two in football, one in basketball).

So there you have it, the unrivaled champion of college football, your LSU Tigers.  Since the BCS formula is designed to get the two best teams into the championship game, it’s comforting to know LSU made the system proud.  I mean, these were the two best teams . . . . . . . right?  Add my voice to the crowd that thinks the BCS is little more than an expensive joke.

Consider a few things . . .  

On the one hand, the “experts” tell us a team like USC had no business being in the championship game since of their two losses, one was at home to 41-point underdog Stanford.  SC, they say, has no one to blame but themselves.  LSU, on the other hand, more than proved their worthiness even though they also lost two games this season . . . got it?  You with me so far?  You see, both of their losses were in triple overtime and that’s very important to remember.  When you connect the dots you come to realize that two three-overtime losses translates into LSU being superior to a two-loss SC team that included losing as 41 point favorites.  By the way, did you get a chance to see that inferior, SC team against Illinois in the Rose Bowl?  The Trojans may have just scored again. 

Then there’s the case of Missouri.  They made it all the way to the Big 12 championship game only to get taken out by what was then thought of as one of the two or three best teams in the nation, the Oklahoma Sooners.  And all OU did in the Fiesta Bowl was get humiliated by West Virginia . . . the same West Virginia team that was one easy, home win over Pittsburgh from playing in the championship game.  Pitt played stingy, the Mountaineers looked horrible (with the help of a key injury for most of the game to QB Pat White) and before you knew it, West Virginia was out of the picture.  And don’t forget about Kansas.  They lost to Missouri in their huge late season match-up and with any thoughts of the BCS championship dashed, their consolation prize was an Orange Bowl win over Virginia Tech.  Oh, that Mizzou team that suddenly dropped off everyone’s radar after the OU loss — they annihilated Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl.

More than any other college football season in recent memory, this was a year that desperately needed a playoff.  So many will say the regular season is, in essence, college football’s playoff system.  And that reasoning is about as plausible as baseball not having a steroids problem.  If that school of thought was true, an early loss would hurt you just as much as a late loss but fans of college football know that’s simply not the case.  You lose early, you’ve still got a shot (in LSU’s case, you can lose twice and still have a shot); you lose late and you’re more than likely looking at a second tier bowl game.

USC, West Virginia, Missouri and Georgia (remember them?) were all worthy of at least the chance to show they were the best team in college football for 2007.  And it can be argued Michigan and Kansas could have rounded out a playoff as well, with the Wolverines taking out Florida in the Capital One Bowl to go along with the Jayhawks’ impressive Orange Bowl showing.

Now let’s see, if you add up those teams along with LSU and Ohio State, you get eight.  Eight teams would not be a bad number for a playoff.  And yet . . .

Those darned college football purists are out there.  You know who I’m talking about.  The folks who insist bowl games are the very fabric of all that makes college football so special.  A playoff would ruin the grand tradition that is college football.  And my personal favorite: The “kids” will be out of school too much; it’s too draining on their young bodies.  Please.

This is old ground here but it bears mentioning nonetheless.  Those “kids” seem to do just fine when they’re away during the NCAA basketball tournament.  Players leaving as early as Tuesday and staying, if they win their first round game, until Sunday?  If there was a Division 1 (Football Bowl Subdivision) football playoff, how is the travel any worse if the team leaves on a Thursday for a Saturday game and then flies home that evening or Sunday morning?

And why are the “kids” in the lower NCAA divisions (Football Championship Subdivision, formerly 1-AA, Divisions II and III) just fine with a multiple-weeks playoff format?  How is it that their young bodies seem to recover week-to-week just fine?

It’s a tired, almost nauseating, debate that doesn’t promise to get better anytime soon.  The one thing we know: LSU, by the BCS system, is your national champion for 2007.  But are they truly the best team?  I’m not buying it.  I’m no more or less an expert than the folks on television telling me what I’m supposed to think.  And with that in mind, I honestly believe USC, West Virginia, Missouri and Georgia would have been damn interesting to watch in a playoff with LSU and Ohio State.  And I don’t care that Georgia didn’t even play for the SEC championship; one look at them in the last month of the season as well as how they dismantled Hawaii more than validated their credentials.  Throw in Michigan and Kansas to round out a nice, eight team playoff and you’ve got something that builds to a more exciting, edge-of-your-seat, heart-pounding finish than the NCAA basketball championship.

And it will probably never happen.

bcs photo, courtesy streeter lecka/getty images

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