BCSmageddon?

Every sports-talk shouting head's wet dream came true this weekend, as the mediocre teams that were meandering their way towards a matchup in the BCS Championship Game, Missouri and West Virginia, both lost, WVU choking it away against a 3-touchdown underdog in Pitt. This gives every one of the aforementioned shouting heads to rail against the BCS, and for a playoff system. Or against a playoff system, and for the BCS. Or against both a playoff system and the BCS, and in favor of rock-paper-scissors for the championship. Or whatever. The great thing about being a shouting head is that you don't have to actually make sense with what you say, as Skip Bayless proves daily. You just have to say it very loudly.

Now, we're probably left with the right matchup. I don't think anyone really thinks LSU and Ohio State are actually the best teams in the country - consensus seems to be that USC is playing the best right now - but they probably did have the best seasons of any two major-conference schools. If you are going to insist on having a championship game, it's probably the right matchup, although man, would I love to see Hawaii have a shot at taking out Ohio State. That would be entertaining.

Last Friday, Josh Levin argued in Slate that the championship game shouldn't happen every year. Needless to say, he posted today saying how the weekend's events only proved him right.

And he's right, but I'll go him one better. The championship game simply shouldn't happen at all.

I love College Football. The rivalries, the traditions, the ridiculous names for games like 'Ye Olde Wooden Bucket, With A Small Hole In It, Bowl.' But it's time to realize that, with so many teams playing so few games, there's simply no way to really know who the best team is, or to know who deserves to be playing in a championship game.

Football is unique for its pace. The physical nature of the game seems to really restrict normal human beings to about 1 game per week, which puts a pretty severe limit on how many games teams can play in a season. In the pros, there are a limited number of teams, and a central scheduling organization that makes sure everyone plays a balanced schedule.

However, in College, there are too many teams, and too few weeks, and as a result, there will never be even remotely balanced schedules. Which mostly serves as an excuse for pundits to vote for teams they know (like LSU) rather than having to stay up until midnight on a Saturday to watch Hawaii play.

So, in reality, we'll never actually know who the best team is. I suppose if you put in a 32-team bracket, you could reasonably expect to figure it out, but that would be a prohibitively big change in the system. And, of course, this all depends on your definition of the word 'best'. Is it best, as in 'played the best all season?' Or best, as in 'playing the best right now?' Or some other definition altogether?

To the point, I really don't mind the BCS. Let's just be honest with ourselves, and agree that Ohio State vs. LSU is just a January game between two very good teams who would normally never face each other during the regular season, and be happy with that. And, for those of us who understand it, secretly rejoice every time there is some clusterfuck-or-other in the system, and they rapidly try to fix it, only to have things break down in a whole new way the next year.

UPDATE: Shane wrote on this topic yesterday, arguing in favor of a playoff system. I'm not anti-playoff, per se, and it would have to be better than what they have now. I stand by my argument, though; college football simply is not designed, as a sport, to be capable of determining who the best team out there is, and the sooner we come to grips with that, the better off we will be.