How many teams play in BCS Bowls against teams completely out of the top 10?  Too many.  What are they really playing for?  The BCS Bowls are supposed to be meaningful.  Unfortunately, the solution solves only the title game.  Even that is only half solved.  More on that later.  Since there was no playoff to arrive at the 2 best teams, therefore, the rest of the games are essentially meaningless because the other teams have no shot to advance.  That's like ranking 64 college basketball teams and telling 62 of them to go home.  Only Memphis and North Carolina will play in the Final TWO the rest of you can play a few games amongst yourselves and amuse yourselves.  This is much less than a half measure.  Technically, its a one-fifth measure.

f you have Eight top teams shouldnt you be able to fit them into 10 BCS slots?  Apparently not.  Since there are a total of FIVE BCS Bowls including the Title Game this creates TWO spots for non top eight teams.  Presumably, #'s 9 & 10.  But no. This creates more openings still in the actual BCS Bowls.  This results in #7 USC playing a meaningless Rose Bowl vs #13 Illinois or a #3 Texas playing a #10 Ohio State.  Isn't the whole idea of the BCS that the era of meaningless bowls that only serve as a reward for a good season and basically are meaningfull only to the local chambers of commerce is over?

This measure of separating the BCS bowls from the other bowls is also only a half step.  Yes, they're apart from the Cotton Bowls and the Joe'sGarage.com Bowls of the world, but not so much that you can really tell the difference.  Not when you end up with the aforementioned #3 vs. #10 matchups.  The FULL measure here would be to have the four BCS bowls (minus the title game) set up the subsequent semifinal and final rounds.  If you REALLY want to differentiate between the bowls let the other bowls serve as rewards for a good season to the other teams; as consolation for not making the "elite eight", if you will.  Had a good season but only managed a #9 ranking?  Congratulations, you're in the Cotton Bowl or some other prestigious bowl.  Let the other New Years Eve/Day bowls jockey for the "sexy" matchups.  Let them take into consideration which team's fan base travels well, conference affiliations, etc.  Let the BCS Bowls be TRULY different and serve as a real playoff.  Don't let the line between them and the other bowls blur.  Sever the traditional conference tie ins and other (old bowl) nonsense. This eliminates the problems of a third top eight or ten team from a given conference being the odd team out.

To be fair these extra slots and the need to fill them with non BCS teams or lower ranked teams are not due to some nefarious conspiracy.  They are due to the BCS's own messed up rules.  No more limits to the number of teams from one conference.  If youre ranked #8 and are the THIRD team from your conference why should you be left out?  If you're Wisconsin (2006), why should you go begging after a great season?  You've played by the rules of engagement all year and your reward is a #7 ranking why should you have to play in the Capital One Bowl?  If you''re #6 Missouri (2007) or #8 Texas Tech (2008) why should you be shut out? These top 8 teams end up in the Cotton Bowl.  This is a good bowl to be sure but again they're playing for nothing.

Usually the BCS likes to use these extra slots as charity contributions to the Hawai'i's and Boise States of the college football world.  The problem with this is that more and more these so-called BCS Busters are not being so kind as to roll over against their more powerful BCS opponents like Hawaii did in the Sugar Bowl when they played Georgia.  They're actually proving themselves worthy opponents and beating the Oklahoma's and Alabama's of the BCS.  While BCS officials claim they have been rewarding this success with unprecedented reward and recognition, their system is specifically designed to keep such success at a minimum.  They claim credit for giving them a shot (boise st, utah) when the fact is they EARNED their shots.

The idea of some undeserving team unfairly advancing or some lower seed being able to beat the team that the following week that beat the team the lower seed lost to this week is crazy.  That is what a playofff is.  Thats the point.  You CANNOT continue to say, "this lower ranked team beat this other higher ranked team BUT the losing team is still better."  That is the BCS biz as usual talking.  Ive heard people make this argument before.  But.  You could argue that the last #1 teams, USC (2005), Ohio St (2006-07), and Oklahoma (2008) were the better teams going into the title game.  Just because they lost doesn't mean theyre not #1?  I have news for you.  Yes it does.  In the BCS this playoff mode of thinking ONLY APPLIES for the Title Game.  And THAT is not fair.  In essence, the playoff mentality only applies to the actual winner of the title game.  This is true half measure fashion. If you lose the title game #2 spot is YOURS.  You earned it.  Why should you fall 2-4 spots because some other team has better Strength of Schedule, better record.  They didnt make it to the NCG, YOU did.  This is saying, in essence.  The National Title Game is a playoff, but only for the actual winner.  You?  The loser?  You get to fall 2-4 slots.  To have a NCG loser fall so many slots immediately calls into questions the game itself.

The Selection Committee's job could be made so much simpler if they simply were tasked with allocating the matchups to the Four BCS Bowls.  You then trade the one Title Game Bowl for THREE additional matchups in the semifinal and final rounds and the season lasts only one week more than it does now.  I dont see a down side here.  For example:  You let the committee say, "let's put  Oklahoma/Penn St in the Sugar Bowl, Texas/Utah in the Fiesta, USC/Alabama in the Rose, and Texas Tech/Florida in the Orange."  Done.  Or you can have the individual bowl have preassigned matchups, Rose gets 1 vs 8, etc...

Consider the possibilities of the the last FOUR years' brackets.

I don't mean to sound like some sort of Agent Mulder-esque conspiracy theorist.  This is why I believe the powers that be (BCS, ESPN, etc...) don't want a playoff and in reality don't have a real debate.  They simply trot out some guy to say, "we should have a playoff"  people talk about it and say, "hmmm, thats an interesting idea" and leave it at that.  Or they trot out some new solution so out there it could never be really taken seriously.  ESPN this week is running a realignment scenario so byzantine no one would ever take it seriously.  It involves almost a complete realignment of teams and conferences. 

If someone was to actually lay out the POSSIBILITIES for people to see, they'd actually say, "I'd like to see THAT!"