National Collegiate Football Champion: Only the University of Florida Cares!

The BCS (The Bowl Championship Series) held its "national championship" football game in the Orange Bowl last night between the University of Florida and Oklahoma University. Florida won, 24-14. Florida ended the season with a 13-1 record. USC went 13-1. Texas went 13-1. Boise State lost only one game this season, and that was in a bowl game.

But the kicker (no pun intended) was that the nation's only undefeated team, the University of Utah, wasn't in the national championship game. Utah, in the final rankings by coaches, came in fourth behind Florida, USC, and Texas. Utah, incidentally, beat the University of Alabama in their bowl game. Alabama had been the number one team in the nation for six weeks. It didn't matter to the BCS that an undefeated team could come in fourth in the final standings.

Why? Because Utah didn't play the "right" opponents during the fall season. The computers behind the rankings said, in effect, until you play enough of the "big boys," i.e., USC, Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, LSU, et cetera, you won't get invited to the championship game. In other words, Utah was in the wrong conference even though their conference beat out one of the "big boys'" conference, the PAC10, 6 wins to only 2 losses this season.

If lower level football schools, Division II and Division III and the NAIA, can have a championship playoff system where the national championship is determined on the field and not in the bowels of a computer, so, too, can the "big boys."

While the game last night was interesting and the outcome only decided in the fourth quarter, only Florida and Oklahoma fans, alumni, students and staff really cared about who won as the rest of the country tuned in only to see a good game, not who won the national championship, contrary to all the hoopla by the FOX network to the contrary.

It's time to get rid of the BCS format and play for a championship on the field!

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