Too bad Broncos can’t buck the system

College football’s big story is the BCS national championship game Monday in Arizona. College football’s best story is already over, ended by a system that managed to do something no team could this season: stop the Boise State Broncos.

As always, the good aspects of college football -- such as the passion and creative coaching -- lack the breakaway speed to distance themselves from the bad -- such as greed and unfairness.

We’ve all seen the crazy ways the Broncos found the end zone in their instant-classic upset of Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. But there isn’t a trick play in the book that can get Boise State its well-deserved shot at Ohio State.

The undefeated Buckeyes will play one-loss Florida. The undefeated Broncos will watch and wonder if their best would be enough to beat the nation’s top-ranked team.

“I’d be anxious to find out,” Boise State wide receiver Legedu Naanee said. “If they want to line up, I’ll be ready.”

There’s an outside chance the Broncos could get a share of a championship while sitting on their couches. If Florida beats Ohio State it would leave Boise State as the only undefeated team in Division I-A. Question the merits of their Western Athletic Conference schedule all you want, but the Broncos also beat Oregon State, a Pacific 10 team that beat USC, and Big 12 champion Oklahoma, which had star tailback Adrian Peterson back in the lineup. Haven’t they done all they possibly could to get the No. 1 spot?

“That’s a question I want to ask to the public,” wide receiver Jerard Rabb said. “Do you think we’re national champs? What do you think?”

I’d vote for them. I also think we should save the public voting for “American Idol” and let players determine football championships on the field.

Since the coaches are contractually obligated to vote the winner of the BCS championship game No. 1 in the USA Today poll, only the media voters in the Associated Press poll could crown Boise State. More likely, the Broncos will become the 23rd team since 1965 to win all of its games and not have a national championship to show for it.

The heartwarming story of the Broncos will have the temperature lowered by cold cash. Even though a playoff would probably generate more money, it would be distributed into more hands. The rich would rather stay richer.

As Nick Carparelli, associate commissioner of the Big East, told the New York Times for a story explaining why no playoffs are forthcoming, “Everyone is protecting their place in the college football world. There’s no person or entity looking over college football. It’s every conference’s job to look out for their own best interest.”

Don’t forget about that wealthy independent, Notre Dame. It’s still more lucrative for the school to stick by itself and keep the bowl system. By not having to qualify for an actual tournament and not having to split bowl payouts with conference members, Notre Dame received $4.5 million for getting blown out in the Sugar Bowl. Boise State, meanwhile, picked up $3.5 million for winning the Fiesta Bowl. Does that seem right to you?

There are also those who say the bowl system allows more teams to finish on a winning note. Great, why don’t we just pass out ribbons for all 32 bowl winners and take them out for pizza at Shakey’s?

Some people think that that two-point conversion was the perfect ending, and asking Boise State to play another game would jeopardize it. Using that logic, the 1980 USA hockey team should have hung up the skates after beating the Soviets in the Miracle on Ice and not even bothered to play the gold-medal game against Finland.

You know that Gatorade commercial with alternate endings to The Shot (Michael Jordan), The Catch (Joe Montana to Dwight Clark) and The Flip (Derek Jeter)? None of those iconic plays occurred in a championship game. Only one of those teams (the 49ers) went on to win a championship that season. But all of those moments stick in our memory, their value undiminished by what came next. Playing another game could only give Boise State a chance to enhance its accomplishment. It wouldn’t detract from it.

The players have mixed emotions about strapping on the helmets for another game. They’ve enjoyed the surge in popularity, with people stopping Naanee in airports when they see his Boise State duffel bag.

Rabb has watched the game on his mother’s TiVo four times. He also has the memory of taking the pitch from Drisan James on the hook-and-ladder play the Broncos call “Circus,” and running 35 yards, hearing nothing but his own breaths, until he landed in the end zone and then drowned in the noise of the crowd.

But the Broncos wouldn’t have achieved what they did if they were not up to challenges.

“Of course we want to be known as a team that’s able to play with the Ohio States,” Rabb said. “But we’ve beaten everybody that’s brought up against us. We’re fine with where we’re at. We feel like we can play with them. But the BCS is the BCS. That’s how it works.”

“As a competitor, you want to see where you’re at,” Naanee said. “So part of me, yeah. But part of me is like, we played all of our games, we did all we can do for our season. People that don’t play, people that are out there, that’s their job to talk about what would happen, what wouldn’t happen. That’s part of college football, that’s part of what makes college football fun.”

That’s also part of what makes college football so maddeningly frustrating. We can’t just stop and savor what Boise State accomplished because we’ll always wonder what else could have happened.

After 30 years and five sequels some people have forgotten the point of the original “Rocky” movie. The underdog didn’t win. But he got his chance.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@

latimes.com. To read more by Adande go to

latimes.com/adandeblog.