Playoffs?!?!

True/false quiz:

1. The best NFL team won the Super Bowl last year.

2. The best college basketball team won the national championship last year.

3. The best college football team won the national championship last year.

Answers: 1. False 2. False 3. True

Why do we want a playoff again? Oh yeah, because it's the only fair way to determine a champion. Except that, you know, playoffs don't do that at all.

Have you watched March Madness? Like, ever? The minor conference teams are interesting for a weekend, but they don't win it. Butler was a rare exception to even make the final because of a weak field last season (hell, they trailed at halftime to UTEP in their first-round game), but even they didn't win it.

The last champion from a non-major conference was in 1966. It was, coincidentally, the precursor to UTEP, Texas Western. Texas Western won because they played black players in an era when the big schools were afraid to do so (There's actually a pretty good movie about this).

Furthermore, since 1990, no fewer than SIXTEEN champions have been #1 seeds. Two #2 seeds and #3 seeds won the title, while Lute Olson's 1997 Arizona team won the title as (GASP!) a #4 seed.

As you may have guessed, I'm something of a college basketball fanatic. It has historically been my most profitable sport from a gambling perspective, but it is also the only sport I can enjoy watching without having a wager or rooting interest. But unless you are a die-hard like me, you don't know that the season starts in three days. You don't know that #5 Ohio State and #11 Florida play in under two weeks' time.

Hell, why would you? It's not like the game matters.

Do you know why I love college football? It's because after Oklahoma stumbled and bumbled its way to a loss against Missouri, I was truly heartbroken. I was completely inconsolable for quite a while. It meant so much to Oklahoma, and vicariously, to me, that it left me with the kind of feeling usually reserved for devious women.

I feel like Walter Sobchak. "Has the whole world gone crazy?" EVERYONE wants a playoff. But you don't know what you're asking for. It will ruin the game we know and love and make it like college basketball.

Back to the Ohio State/Florida game that at least 26 other people in America are anticipating: Yesterday, I saw an advertisement for college basketball. Was it for this game, or some other huge upcoming game? No. It was for March Madness. Which, as the more intelligent among you may know, is in March.

Can you imagine a world where Alabama loses to South Carolina and the fans have an "Oh well, we'll get them next time" attitude?

Well, you should be able to imagine it. Kentucky basketball fans are pretty similar to Alabama football fans, and that was about their reaction when the Gamecocks handed the Wildcats their first loss last season. Why? Because Kentucky still made the playoff.

But neither they nor Kansas (the best team) won, or even played for, the title because of bad matchups and bad days. We want to decide college football's national champion this way? Come on man.

I don't buy the excuses the NCAA gives for keeping the BCS. More games, less studying, blah, blah, blah. I'll let a better writer than myself refute those. While I despise the NCAA to the core because of their ridiculous rulings on things such as the Dez Bryant case last year, it is so obvious they have this correct.

They came up with the most fair system for determining the two best teams to play for the title. Is it perfect? Of course not. But is it better than the old way, which saw #1 and #2 rarely playing each other and would send Boise to the Humanitarian Bowl every year? By a landslide. And is better than throwing drastically inferior teams into some wacky playoff to satisfy people's delusions? By another landslide.

Here's a thought, Boise. Join a major conference like Utah did. If you envision yourself as a football school, there is no reason for you not to be in the Pac-10, Pac-12 or whatever the hell they are going to call it. Do you think you couldn't have joined over Colo-fucking-rado?

But no.

Just like it was better for Auburn to have been left out of the 2004 BCS title game than to have been ripped apart by the best college football team of the past 15 years, it's better for these small teams not to know.

It is better for Boise and TCU to play 9 or 10 cupcakes every year and then bitch and moan when a one-loss Alabama, Oklahoma or Nebraska is chosen over them. Deep down they know that they only have a couple players who could even make the two-deep for those teams. They know that if they played a motivated 12-1 team from the SEC or Big XII, they would get blown off the field.

Utah has it right. They understand the system and are doing something about it. Will they ever win the national title? Maybe, maybe not. But they are giving themselves a chance.

The American way isn't to give everyone a chance. It's to give everyone a chance who works to deserve a chance. The Boise State's of the world just don't.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For those who would argue #3 was false, that Texas was the best college football team last year ... well, I agree that had McCoy played four quarters, the Longhorns were the favorite to win. But here's the kicker. The BCS gave Texas its deserved chance for the title. A playoff would only increase these kind of injuries that do exactly what the Utopian playoff is supposed to prevent - the best teams having a chance to be champions.