NCAA Needs to Wake Up and Smell Playoff System

With both polls and two of the three computers used in determining college football’s ultimate rankings in agreement that Tennessee and Florida State are the two best teams, the people behind the bowl championship series believe they have been vindicated. How dare a skeptic like me drop their middle initial?

Well, my skepticism, like Miami’s Edgerrin James on Saturday, runs virtually undeterred, fueled by the other computer from the BCS equation. Jeff Sagarin’s calculations still have Kansas State No. 1 and Tennessee No. 2. Thus, according to the MIT graduate, the Volunteers should play the Wildcats, not the Seminoles, for the national championship in the Fiesta Bowl.

That’s not the way I would have voted. I agree with the sportswriters and coaches who participated in the polls. But how do we know Sagarin, who was considered credible enough by the BCS, is wrong?

There’s only one way to find out in the future.

There should be an eight-team playoff, formatted to preserve the significance of the major bowl games.

Strike that. When you consider that bowls such as the Rose, Sugar and Orange are mere consolation prizes this season, a playoff could greatly enhance their significance.

Here’s how: Leave the BCS system intact to determine the top eight teams. Match those teams in the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta bowls Jan. 1, the four winners a week later and the two finalists another week later.

Academicians will complain about the lengthening of the season, but, in fact, there would be one extra game for only four teams and two extra games for only two teams at a time when many college students aren’t even in school because of the holiday break.

Using the BCS rankings, the first round this season would have looked something like this:

Fiesta Bowl: No. 1 Tennessee versus No. 8 Florida.

Sugar Bowl: No. 2 Florida State versus No. 7 Arizona.

Orange Bowl: No. 3 Kansas State versus No. 6 Texas A&M.;

Rose Bowl: No. 4 Ohio State versus No. 5 UCLA.

If they were meeting the Buckeyes on Jan. 1 in Pasadena for a chance to advance to football’s Final Four, the Bruins wouldn’t need to fake their enthusiasm for the Rose Bowl.

*

UCLA’s loss to Miami shouldn’t be dumped entirely in the lap of defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti. . . .

Once it became apparent that UCLA’s defense couldn’t stop the Hurricanes, say when the score was 38-28 early in the fourth quarter, Coach Bob Toledo should have gone to a ball-control offense so that the clock could run and the Hurricanes’ James couldn’t. . . .

UCLA’s running game, behind one of the nation’s best lines, can dominate a defense, especially on a sweltering afternoon in the fourth quarter. . . .

I know that sounds funny, to blame an offense after it scores 45 points. But the Bruins’ best chance to win was to keep a defense better suited to touch than tackle football off the field. . . .

The national analysts weren’t surprised, considering we out here on the West Coast practically invented Showtime. ESPN’s Lee Corso said UCLA defenders should spend less time next summer surfing and more time lifting weights. . . .

If the Bruin defenders recoiled from tackling James, imagine how they must dread facing an even more punishing running back like Wisconsin’s Ron Dayne. . . .

I have to believe UCLA’s defense would have competed better if it hadn’t lost linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo in the first quarter. . . .

That untempered aggression that caused him to ungraciously insult Carson Palmer after the victory over USC serves the Bruins better on the field. . . .

Hey, TCU has football tradition. It’s just dustier than Sun Bowl opponent USC’s. . . .

The Horned Frogs won the national championship in 1938 with Heisman Trophy winner Davey O’Brien at quarterback. Two years earlier, the Frog quarterback was Slingin’ Sammy Baugh. . . .

You know who else went to TCU? Billy Clyde Puckett, Shake Tiller and Barbara Jane Bookman from Dan Jenkins’ “Semi-Tough.” . . .

Now that Don King is in Felix Trinidad’s corner, we might have to wait longer for the long-awaited fight between him and Oscar De La Hoya. . . .

When in L.A. last week, King and Dino Duva discussed a Trinidad-Pernell Whitaker fight. . . .

Must-See TV: Tonight’s HBO special on Sugar Ray Robinson. . . .

HBO’s Larry Merchant compares Pomona native “Sugar” Shane Mosley’s technique to Robinson’s. . . .

“You tell that to people and they look at you like you’ve compared a light bulb to the sun,” Merchant says. “I’m not talking about the complete package, but, in technique, he’s the closest I’ve seen to Sugar Ray.” . . .

Somehow, I wasn’t comforted by this quote from NFL Vice President George Young about the officials: “Even if they were incompetent but honest, they would be incompetent for both sides.”

*

While still waiting for Vinny Testaverde to cross the goal line, I was thinking: You know the NFC is bad when people are pointing to the New Orleans-Arizona game in two weeks as a big one, the Cowboys would be the fifth-best team in the AFC East, not even John Elway has decided more games this season than Phil Luckett.