Who will play for title? Better to ask who won't

By Jim Litke, AP sports columnist

[November 13, 2009]  WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) -- Such is the sorry state of college football this season that it's more fun trying to guess how many deserving teams won't play for the Bowl Championship Series' mythical national title than which two actually will.

That's because the suits in charge of the BCS have already effectively narrowed the race to the winner of the Southeastern Conference, almost certainly Florida or Alabama, against Texas. All three are unbeaten and currently ranked Nos. 1, 2 and 3; barring any major upsets in the final weeks, two of them will remain there.

It will be hard to argue that the winner of the BCS Championship game on Jan. 7 in Pasadena isn't deserving, but hardly impossible.

If it's Florida or Alabama, that team will have emerged from the toughest league in the land unscathed and then knocked off a Texas team that looks like the worthiest challenger. And if it's Texas, well, the fact that the Longhorns beat the SEC's best will make people forget that the Big 12 had an off year.

But as long-suffering fans of a playoff know all too well, looks are all we have to go on.

The BCS has made a half-dozen tweaks and injected all sorts of pseudoscience into the process of ranking the teams down through the years, but ultimately, it's still no more decisive than the results of a beauty pageant. What promises to make this season tougher than ever to decide is that there are three unbeaten teams chasing Florida, Alabama and Texas, and each one "looks" like a worthy contender.

No. 5 Cincinnati could wind up with the best argument, since the Bearcats play in the ACC, one of the BCS' anointed half-dozen power conferences. Of course, Auburn went through the SEC undefeated a few years ago and a lot of good that did the Tigers. But this time around, No. 4 TCU from the Mountain West and No. 6 Boise State from the WAC will also get excluded, and they've increasingly become the darlings of everyone who roots for the underdog or simply hates the BCS.

It doesn't hurt that Utah's attorney general and it's U.S. senator, Orrin Hatch, have begun exploring legal and antitrust options to make sure the little guys have the same access to the title game that their bigger BCS brethren do. Not much will come of it, mind you, but the same college presidents who simply tabled any discussion of a playoff at past BCS meetings might feel differently with the threat of a subpoena hanging over their heads. The coaches who work for them, on the other hand, have been feeling the heat for years.

Mack Brown, to name just one, has been on the wrong side of past BCS decisions and found himself forced to lobby poll voters for consideration. This past spring, the Texas coach even invited the people in charge of several of the computerized rankings to Austin in hopes of gleaning some insight. No such luck. And so Monday, unhappy with the Longhorns' unimpressive standing with many of those same computers, he cracked a joke about trying to call them but getting no response.

Not surprisingly, it was something else Brown said that generated a bit of controversy. He wasn't the first coach to trip over his tongue trying to explain the mysteries of the BCS. The point he was trying to make was that non-BCS teams, like TCU and Boise State, should get the same consideration for the national title game as teams from the power conferences, as well as the scrutiny that goes with it. What some people thought they heard Brown say, though, was the opposite.

The real problem is that the system is broken. It is a lot easier to go undefeated in the Mountain West and the WAC than it is in the SEC, Big 12 or BCS conferences just about every year. But what teams like Boise State and TCU have figured out is that by doing that, and scheduling one or two tough BCS opponents -- and beating them -- will get them into the argument every year.

Supporters of the BCS defend their system by saying that every week is a playoff, but this season has made that argument moot. They also push the notion that arguing is good for the game, but by the time this one is in the books, they'll be hoarse trying to defend what's become an indefensible position.

Sadly, it won't change the system for a few years to come, at least not until negotiations for the next TV contract begin. But even a little bit of heartburn will be a small bit of payback for all the aggravation it has caused just about everybody else.

[Associated Press; By JIM LITKE]

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at [e-mail].

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