The Absolutely Perfect And Wonderful College Football Storm

If you weren't paying attention to any college football yesterday, it was grand and glorious, folks...if you're the kind of person that revels in chaos and wants to see major colleges get to some sort of playoff system. The events of yesterday only put the cherry on top of a mess of a season-long sundae.

See, top-ranked Missouri lost in the Big 12 championship game.

Then, 2nd ranked West Virginia (a 28-point favorite) lost at home to arch rival Pittsburgh (who have a losing record even with the win).

So, that should put 3rd ranked Ohio State and 4th ranked Georgia in the game for this year's title, right?

Well, Ohio State will get in, but they won a weak conference and had no championship game...sitting at home not playing and yet will get in. Don't get me started on how they'd easily lose to 6 of the current teams that make up the Associated Press top 10.

But 4th ranked Georgia didn't win their conference (the Southeastern). In fact, they didn't even win their division within their conference. Same for 5th ranked Kansas. Neither team played in their respective conference championship games.

So, 6th ranked Virginia Tech, which won the ACC conference championship should go, right?

Well, yes, except for the matter that they lost a game to SEC champion, and 7th ranked L.S.U. Ahem, lost that game by exactly 41 points. You heard me. 41 points. Nearly 6 touchdowns.

Which means that other teams like Oklahoma and Southern Cal, that also have 2 losses, have some degree of argument that they should go to the championship game.

Oh, man...

...this is so great.

And, as is my custom, this is where the same type arguments for Auburn in 2004 (who went unbeaten and weren't given a shot at playing for the championship. I can't stand to hear the rationale sportscasters are now using to support putting L.S.U. in the big game: "They are the best team in the best conference." Yeah, well. So was Auburn...and all AU fans heard in 2004 was, "Well, you weren't ranked #1 or #2 during the season, so you'll have to sit out. Never mind that OU plays in a sorry Big 12 or that USC plays in a sorrier Pac-10. You just enjoy your Sugar Bowl win and we aren't giving you even a share of the title." But now the SEC is all big and bad (which, of course, SEC fans know it is, but only now brings out the talking heads raving about it). But...

...I digress.

But, in case you're wondering, the McKinney Diner playoff system still is the best one going today. All you have to do to get into the playoffs is win your BCS conference. That way, you could schedule great games with teams from across the country with no penalty in the national race (with the exception of BCS rankings, but that only matters for the last two teams, not the top two in my system).

So, this year, you'd have a championship that involves:

LSU
Virginia Tech
Ohio State
West Virginia
USC
Oklahoma

Then, you'd let the BCS rankings pick the next two teams that didn't win their conference. In this case, you'd have Georgia and Missouri (or possibly Kansas--but let's say Missouri since they won head-to-head). This year, if you want, you could substitute an unbeaten Hawaii team for Georgia or Mizzou, if they rose high enough in the polls. Naturally, all the other bowls remain the same...except for the Cotton and Outback, which will be needed for the number of games for a playoff. One more would be needed...so let's throw the Capital One in for good measure.

And, using the BCS rankings for seedings, the first round might look something like this:

LSU vs. West Virginia--Outback
Ohio State vs. Missouri--Orange
USC vs. Virginia Tech--Cotton
Oklahoma vs. Georgia-Capital One

The Rose and Fiesta would host the next week's semifinals. The Sugar Bowl gets the national championship. To keep the bowls happy, you just have to rotate them for 1st round, semis and finals.

And, I really believe that this season would end up with USC and Georgia playing for it all...

...but this amount of chaos is perfect toward pushing us to a playoff. And Saturday was channel-flipping drama. Which was beautiful!