The big picture

Alabama has had a very soft schedule, the Crimson Tide is a 10-point underdog to second-ranked Florida on a neutral field, yet Alabama is ranked No. 1. Clearly the ranking system is irrelevant to the real world of NCAA football, and this insanity screams for playoffs.

Robert Rothman

Rolling Hills Estates

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Style points? Style points? That’s how Oklahoma beats Texas in the BCS rankings? How about the style points you get beating an opponent straight up? A more eloquent argument for a playoff series can’t be made than the current BCS minefield.

Mark Sevi

Costa Mesa

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Before the BCS, jubilant USC fans would have held roses in their hands and chanted “Beat Penn State.” But now, after the mess that is the BCS, the Rose Bowl is viewed as nothing more than a consolation prize. How sad for USC, the Pac-10, the Big Ten, college football and fans who used to cherish Jan. 1 as the greatest gridiron day of the year.

Rhys Thomas

Valley Glen

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For all those weary of the BCS, the following is a simple exercise that can help blow off some steam. Interchange different words to make your own acronym:

B -- Bowl, banal, banged-up, back-biting, broken, backlash, bamboozled, bad, bizarre, backfiring.

C -- Championship, chaos, confusion, criticized, calamitous, cheap, chicanery, clunker, cloudy, condemned.

S -- Series, stinker, sadness, shenanigans, sin, slight, shame, spoiler, strain, syndrome.

Repeat and substitute as necessary.

Mark J. Featherstone

Windsor Hills

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Chris Dufresne’s claim that Utah should be in the national championship game has more holes in it than Phil Spector’s defense. Dufresne’s claim that many of the BCS computers have Utah ranked higher than USC, and other top-10 schools, is exactly why computers should not be used to rank college football.

Utah, although 12-0, played an absolutely horrible Michigan team, a one-win San Diego State team, Weber State, four-win New Mexico and four-win Wyoming. So no Chris, Utah does not belong in the national championship game.

Brian Haueter

Ventura

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When Chris Dufresne went into yet another one of his spiels about Utah over USC, you just had to know he’d cite the 2007 Boise State-Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl. One could point to the 2008 Georgia-Hawaii massacre as an indication that not every mouse roars, but why bother with Dufresne? This is a man who not only ranks Utah above USC, but he gets paid for doing so. And you thought the BCS was complicated.

Douglas Douglas

Pasadena