In the past (last fall especially) I've wasted a lot of space on this blog ranting about how I hate the BCS, and sometimes even just making general commentary on college football. I even somehow acquired my own personal heckler for those posts. But this season I've been preoccupied with other things like the birth of my baby. Which is not to say that I haven't paid attention to college football. Indeed, I watched football in the hospital room the day after Ellie was born. But I guess I haven't had much to say. So this post will suffice for a season's worth of football commentary and summary. Anonymous heckler, I hope you're still listening.

Basically, the BCS lucked out this year. For the first time in a while, there are exactly two Div. I-A undefeated teams, and they both look incredible. I'm very excited to watch the Rose Bowl. I think it'll be an awesome game. For the record, I'll be cheering for USC, despite my tendency to cheer for underdogs, because I want to see how long they can extend this winning streak.

But when some yahoo TV announcer comes on like I saw the other day and says, "All you people who naysay the BCS, just take a look. We're going to have a great matchup for the national championship, and this wouldn't have been possible without the BCS. In the old world, USC and Texas could never meet. Now we'll get to see who's number one."

This kind of argument totally misstates the position of people like me who naysay the BCS. None of us are arguing that we should return to the old system of unrelated silly little bowl games. We want a playoff. I truly believe that if a playoff were implemented this year, USC and Texas would still meet in the national championship game. They're by far the best two teams around. But no one is griping about the fact that we've done away with the old bowl system. Even I'll admit that the BCS is an improvement over that system. Like I said, I'm excited for the Rose Bowl, and it's all due to the BCS.

But that doesn't make the BCS ideal. Like I said, the BCS lucked out this year in that there are two superior teams. A couple of weeks ago, I even saw a clip of Lee Corso (ESPN analyst) arguing that the BCS is good because last year USC and Oklahoma would have played in different bowls and therefore "We'd have known NOTHING." Well, Lee, maybe you forgot, but we still don't know if last year's USC team was better than last year's Auburn or Utah teams. I know that Utah beat BYU more soundly than USC did last year. A playoff would have allowed EVERYONE to compete with each other, and we'd really know who's best.

And none of this changes my #1 gripe with the BCS: the fact that it marginalizes 5 of the 11 Div. I-A conferences. I don't care if you are Florida State, and I don't care if you did technically win the ACC. The #22 team in the country doesn't deserve to play in a BCS bowl game. If we can't have a playoff, can we at least have the eight best teams in the BCS, regardless of conference affiliation? If one conference has a ton of good teams one year, so be it. Let the WAC or MWC or even the Sun Belt in on the same standard that the ACC and Florida State get let in. And let that standard be merit, not conference affiliation. (The fact that FSU got in based on their victory in the inaugural ACC Championship Game undermines one of the principal arguments against a playoff. People say a playoff would ruin the mystical way every game of the regular season is important in college football. Yeah, well so do conference championship games. FSU's four (FOUR!) losses in the regular season don't seem to matter much now, do they? Imagine if Colorado had somehow beaten Texas!)