There’s no sport in the United States that generates more controversy than the sport of college football. It is by far one of the most popular sports in the U.S. and the system that’s used to determine who plays for the national championship, the BCS, is considered by many fans to be flawed and stupid. This is because the BCS is a computer system and most fans don’t like a computer determining their team’s fate.

This year, the top two teams in the country are Alabama (11-0) and Texas Tech (10-0). Both have shown tremendous improvement from the year before. Alabama was a disappointing 7-6 last year under their new coach Nick Saban after starting 6-2 and Texas Tech was 9-4 under coach Mike Leach. With only a few weeks to go, it’s likely that if Alabama and Texas Tech, who are both unbeaten, win the rest of their games, they will meet in the national championship game. Alabama has one more regular season game against their rivals Auburn and the SEC Championship Game against Florida, who’s also in title contention. Texas Tech has an important game at Oklahoma on Saturday night. The winner of this game will keep their national championship hopes alive and the loser will likely be eliminated. After that, they play Baylor and possibly Missouri in the Big 12 Championship Game if they beat Oklahoma. If either team loses, the controversy will start all over again.

The BCS was designed in a way that would hopefully pair two undefeated teams against each other. Unfortunately, it hasn’t always worked out that way. For example, when Missouri lost to Oklahoma in last year’s Big 12 Championship Game and West Virginia lost to Pittsburgh, the national championship spots were up for grabs. The sad thing for Missouri and West Virginia is that if they had won their respective games, it was likely they would have played for the national championship. But instead, after a few more weeks of intrigue and uncertainty, the two teams that would play in the title game were revealed. At #1: Ohio State and at #2: LSU. This was interesting because LSU had two losses since a two loss team had never played in the national championship game before and most people thought that LSU’s chances were over after their loss to Arkansas. Ohio State was another story. People were upset because they didn’t think Ohio State should have gotten another chance because they were blown out 41-14 by Florida in the previous championship game. Teams like Georgia and USC thought they should have been considered because of the teams they beat and thought they were more deserving.  But Georgia didn’t win their conference, so that was a factor that probably knocked them out of consideration. USC probably had somewhat of a convincing argument because of their status as a powerhouse of college football. They would have been helped if a playoff system had been in place or if they hadn’t lost to Stanford. Hawaii was also mentioned since they were undefeated, but their schedule wasn’t that strong. They did, however, get a BCS bid for the Sugar Bowl, where they were crushed by Georgia 41-10. The last national title game was again a disappointment for Ohio State, who ended up losing 38-24 to LSU.

                Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the only year that this controversy has occurred. Four years ago, an undefeated Auburn Tigers team was left out of the national championship against USC, who ended up beating Oklahoma. The year before that, USC and LSU won their respective BCS games and ended up sharing the national championship. Again, a playoff system might have helped to decide the “real” champion. The only years where there were no controversies over the top two teams in the country were 2002 when Ohio State played Miami in the Fiesta Bowl and 2005 when Texas played USC in the Rose Bowl.

                Ever since the BCS was formed, there have been several coaches and millions of fans who have wanted some kind of playoff system. Some want a playoff as big as 16 teams while others want a playoff as small as four teams. The four team playoff is essentially a “plus-one” system where two of the BCS games are semifinals and then those winners play in the national championship game. They feel that computer rankings and media polls are biased and unfair. To them, it’s not fair that one loss or two should hurt a team’s chances to play for a national championship. They also think it’s not fair that the six BCS conferences get automatic bids and non-conference bids don’t. Even President-elect Barack Obama has advocated for a playoff of the top eight teams in the country. He said in response to a question on 60 Minutes,

“I think any sensible person would say that if you've got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season, and many of them have one loss or two losses, there's no clear decisive winner that we should be creating a playoff system. Eight teams. That would be three rounds, to determine a national champion. It would it would add three extra weeks to the season. You could trim back on the regular season. I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I'm gonna throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do.”

 However, BCS commissioners and traditionalists feel that a playoff system would take the meaning out of late season games because the teams that would have clinched spots early wouldn’t play as hard as they normally would. They feel that the BCS makes every game important and that it rewards the teams that win the most games and it keeps the intensity of college football’s greatest rivalries. It also adds an extra three weeks to the season that takes away student-athletes academic priorities.

                I believe that there needs to be some kind of change to the BCS system. Having these controversies year-after-year is something that needs to end. I think the change that’s needed is a playoff system of the top four teams in the country with the two BCS games as semifinals. The other teams that weren’t picked for the playoff would get the other two BCS bowls and the teams with records that weren’t good enough for the BCS games would get spots in the other bowl games. It would give both sides what they want and even though there would still be controversy, it would be over who gets in the playoffs and not who plays in the national championship.