The final college football Saturday of the regular season certainly produced some memorable results. Not on the field, mind you, as viewers were offered the scintillating fare of one RUTS after another, beginning with the amusing demonstration of exactly why Notre Dame is now testing the conference waters as Walter Reyes found the going much easier against a lousy Irish defense than he did against Tech�s [in a game I lost all interest in continuing to watch just as soon as Tech�s short-handed and talent-shy basketball team tipped off another gritty effort]. It ended with the sidesplitting hilarity of Oklahoma hitting a bump in the road to coronation as the latest best team of all time, as nobody seems to have gotten the word to a Kansas State bunch that mauled the Sooners 35-7.

This set in motion the really big event of the weekend, as all of those computers running the BCS 6.0 software suddenly discovered they were all infected with the dreaded Upset virus, causing them to crash and burn, and by the time they were re-booted serious damage seemed to have been done to the logic sections of the programming, as they ground out a championship game that somehow or another managed to not include the nation�s Number One team. Go figure.

This kind of computer-generated goofiness was probably not what SEC honcho Roy Kramer had in mind when he devised the BCS as a means to supposedly use the framework of the existing bowls to determine a true national champion. The subjectivity of poll voters was replaced with the subjectivity of computer nerds and whatever formulae they devised that produced a championship match-up of Number Two versus Number Three and certainly put the �M� in MNC. Perhaps they should retire all of those expensive computers and give pulling the teams out of a hat a shot. When I did just that I came up with a Sugar Bowl of LSU and Kansas State. At least they won their conference championship games.

The silly process culminated late Sunday afternoon with the BCS Selection Show. ABC trotted out its Times Square gang to explain not why Southern Cal was left out because they were Number Three in the BCS standings - which they were from the instant Notre Dame went down in flames and demonstrated why they steadfastly refused to schedule Tech - but why Southern Cal was left out because they were Number Three in the BCS standings in spite of their top ranking in both polls. To his credit, host John Saunders didn�t even try. Saunders, looking like a guy who couldn�t wait for ABC�s hockey coverage, refused to justify or hype his network�s spectacle, wondering along with the rest of us exactly how this inanity came about. His partners were not exactly forthcoming, either. About the best diminutive dullard Terry Bowden could offer was "Why does Daddy have to play big bad Miami again" and "I ain�t giving Auburn the money back." Craig James, appearing to be elated at finding semi-meaningful work after quitting GameDay years ago and enabling Kirk Herbstreit to obtain cult status among college coeds, could only come up with "Something doesn�t seem right." No kidding, Craig.

It was left to BCS Chairman and our own beloved Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese to defend the screwball selection process. Why is it not surprising that this snafu occurred on the watch of Tranghese? The mumbling Tranghese had none, only explaining that computers, like most everything pertaining to being a conference commissioner, were beyond him. It was surprising that he didn�t blame the entire mess on John Swofford or use this forum to claim "It�s only football" and "Golly gee, we�re gonna have the best basketball conference ever." The vagaries of the BCS selection system are not something that Tranghese will have to concern himself with much longer.

This is not the first time there has been controversy attached to the BCS� method of anointing teams for the MNC game. The BCS works best when there are two undefeated teams and only two. This has only happened twice in the six-year history of the BCS, in 1999 when Tech and Florida State both managed 11-0 seasons and last year when Miami and Ohio State emerged from the regular season unscathed. In its very first year, 1998, problems popped up when what were thought would be three undefeated teams jockeying for the MNC shrunk to one the last week of the season when Nebraska unexpectedly lost the Big 12 championship game back before the system was tweaked to allow teams from that conference to lose their way into the big bowl, and UCLA was thrashed by Miami. That allowed Florida State to back into the Fiesta Bowl. In 2000 there was much consternation in Coral Gables and elsewhere, as again, the computers liked FSU over a Miami team that had beaten the Noles. And in 2001 Nebraska, which did not even make it to the Big 12 championship game, was selected over what seemed to be half a dozen more deserving teams, and the Huskers proved it by getting trampled by Miami. There is certainly precedent for the BCS screwing up the process.

It would seem a simple matter for the BCS to require that a team actually win its conference before gaining admittance to the championship game. When Tranghese was asked that very question on the selection show, his response was "There�s a thought" before explaining that his fellow BCS commissioners just hadn�t gotten around to it as of yet. Sunday morning seemed to have been an opportune time, Mike. Logic has not yet prevailed, however, so instead we get a Sugar Bowl of LSU and an Oklahoma team last seen dejectedly trudging in ignominious defeat from Arrowhead Stadium. Left out is a Southern Cal team that, if they open their season next year against Tech and I will believe it when the ball is kicked off, will come in with most everybody back from this year�s terrific team and a fair-sized chip on their shoulder. Better get that defensive chemistry worked out, Bud.

I get the feeling ABC doesn�t particularly mind this latest BCS controversy. After all, they now get two MNC games for the price of one. The ratings spike for the Rose Bowl should do the same for sales of corn chips. There will now be a year�s worth of increasingly louder demands for a playoff that will be resisted by the Disney network. They televise the crowning of a college football champion, or at least a reasonable facsimile of one, for a bargain when compared to the billions CBS is shelling out for the NCAA Basketball Tournament. ABC has no real economic incentive to change the current system and, for all of the high-minded talk from college presidents about the disastrous effects all of those empty Sociology classes in December will have on higher education, there will be no playoff until ABC or some other network decides to fund one.

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