  Here's a fun site: urlLink Colley's Bias Free College Football Rankings . Wes Colley is a professor of Astronomy at the urlLink University of Virginia ( urlLink Wahoowa!!! ) who runs one of the seven computer polls used in the BCS formula. Thankfully, he has yet to be stoned to death (although my only evidence of this is the lack of newspaper stories -- maybe there's some coverup here?).
Try entering this series of "what-if's. " Add: UVA beats Clemson UVA beats Florida State UVA beats South Carolina Virginia Tech beats West Virginia Maryland beats Northern Ill Remove: The opposite of the five games listed above. The results? UVA miraculously moves up from being ranked 42 to the number five slot! Oh, what could have been. But this web site introduces some interesting questions. Is this system fair? I've thought about this a lot over the past year or so. My conclusion? Who cares. I'm not going to take urlLink Stewart Mandel's position that this is what makes college football what it is, but I will say that it makes for interesting lunch conversation with the boys. I don't think schools (read any team not in the six BCS conferences) should be excluded from the system, but this is fun.
If the powers that be do decide to tweak the system, they need to preserve the number one reason why college football is the most fun game to watch: Every game must be of the utmost importance. Any change must maintain the fact that fans and players alike contemplate jumping from the seventh story of the campus library any time their team loses. Of course, this causes a bit of a problem with the whole playoff idea. While I like the idea that a playoff will almost always choose the most deserving champion, it has two flaws in my mind. First, there must be a method for selecting the teams that will be in the playoff. What are we going to use?
The BCS? The human polls? All flawed. Second, you have to select enough teams to start the playoff as to make sure that all teams that have a remote possibility of winning the championship are included. What is that number? If it's greater than four then we have a problem, as that adds three or more games to the end of the already lengthy season.
So here is my simple four step plan for creating a (nearly) perfect college football system. 1. ) Limit the regular season to 11 games, all against division 1-A teams. Conference championships must be included in the 11 games. 2. ) Set up a 16-team championship using the following rules. One: There will be eight (8) automatic berths into the championship -- one from each of the BCS conferences, one from the MAC, and one from Conference USA. Two: There will be eight (8) at-large berths -- the top eight teams in the BCS to not receive an automatic berth. 3. ) The first round of the championship will be the regular bowls. The rest will be played at a later date.
4. ) The team to win the tournament will be the undisputed national champion. The key to making this work while preserving all that is good about college football is to make sure that every game matters. Therefore, the BCS ranking system needs to weigh heavily on losses, especially in-conference losses. This isn't a perfect proposal (I doubt it would make enough money to keep the bowl officals happy), and I'm sure I'll change my mind before I go to bed tonight, so check back tomorrow for my next brilliant idea. Toodles. 
