This Obsession with No. 1

The brouhaha usually begins to get fanatical right around this time every year, especially on sports talk radio: The need for a playoff system in college football. It's all fed by the hysteria created around that one fundamental truth: "We need to know who is No. 1. We need to know who is the best."

Think about it. Our lives would simply spin out of control if we weren't constantly reminded of who or what is No. 1: What is the best-selling CD or book? What is the weekend movie box-office champ? And, then, at the end of the year or season or whatever, we must have some academy telling us what is the best movie, the best television series, the best Broadway play.

It's pervasive wherever you turn. How many times have you watched a news show in which a reporter asks a question like "What is the No. 1 reason ...?" "What do you consider the most important ...?"

This is especially true in sports where the competition is designed specifically to determine who is the best. That is, after all, the basis for the Olympics. That's why we have a Super Bowl, a World Cup, a Stanley Cup, a World Series. We need to have a champion, a No 1.

Why? I dunno. And no one has ever given me a satisfactory explanation. All I do know is that we are fanatical about learning who is No. 1.

Which brings me around to college football and why I love it so, perhaps more than any other sport. True, it does have its weekly rankings, but they are so imperfect. Everyone knows they are imperfect. Boise State vs. Oklahoma proves that they are imperfect. But I'll let them slide if only to appease the No. 1 fanatics.

But college football started something called the BCS which was designed to appease the fanatics without giving in to the pressure of having a playoff system. I'm not going to try to explain the BCS--I really don't think anyone can explain it. I'm not even going to even try to describe it. Leave it at this: It was a system designed so that at the end of the college football season, the No. 1-ranked team could play the No. 2-ranked team to determine which of those should wear the title of National Championship. Trouble is, there are those who claim that just because a team is ranked No. 1 or No. 2 doesn't mean they are the best or the second best team in the country (see above reference to Boise State vs. Oklahoma). So the fanatics scream: The only way we're going to settle this once and for all is to have a playoff system.

What a crock! A playoff wouldn't settle anything and would answer a question that's illegitimate in the first place.

The majority of the playoff options I have heard fall within two scenarios. There is the so called "Plus-1 Game," which goes something like this: After all the regular bowl games have been played out, including, presumably, the BCS game itself, let's pick the two best teams from the rubble that remains and let them play for the real championship. Problem is: Who is going to determine who the two best teams are? The second scenario is the "8-team playoff" scenario in which the major bowl games are done away with and replaced with a system in which the Top 8 teams in the final BCS standings find themselves in a seeded playoff format. What's wrong with that? I'll tell you. Why just eight? What do you think the reaction would be if we restricted the NCAA basketball championships to just the Top 8 teams in the final rankings? And who is really to say that the No. 8 team should be included and the No. 9 team excluded? Especially when there's a built-in bias in the entire system to begin with. I am still convinced that the last team Urban Meyer coached at Utah was the best team in the country that year, but the Utes never got the opportunity to prove it because of the built-in bias against Utah's conference, the Mountain West. The Utes did go to the Fiesta Bowl that year where they destroyed a good Pittsburgh team, but who was paying attention?

Yes, the current system is flawed but instituting a playoff system would make it worse, would only feed into this unanswerable No. 1 hysteria and would not be in the best interests of college football.

There are those who fail to understand what college officials have against a playoff system. "Why," the critics say, "a playoff system would draw more fans, a larger television audience, increased advertising revenues and thus more money."

Now, I will admit that I have never sat down with a college president to hear an explanation for opposing a playoff system. But, if I were a college president, here's why I would oppose it. It has to do with the money, but not the money for appearing in a playoff, but the money you don't receive for not appearaing.

Let's say I'm the president of ... oh, I dunno, let's say SMU because it's right here in Dallas. SMU hasn't even been to a bowl game, let alone come close to qualifying for what would be a playoff spot, since Peyton Manning began to walk upright. But with this playoff system, you are allowing other teams to play anywhere between one to three more games than I can, even if my Ponies did qualify for a bowl. Sorry, but I can't let you get away with that. I can't let those teams that I think are competing with me for recruiting talent get all that extra income that comes with additional games. I will never approve a system that tilts the money pool so unfairly. If you're going to let Oklahoma or, for heaven's sake, possibly TCU, play one or two additional games, than I want to schedule a couple of more games that will allow me to add more money into my athletic fund.

So what's the anwser? I recommend invoking "The Hercules Satele Rule." And who exactly is Hercules Satele? I'm glad you asked that (even if you didn't) because I selected Mr. Satele to be the namesick of my system chiefly because of his anonymity, at least to that part of the college football world for whom the Pacific Ocean is an extreme western boundary. Hercules Satele is a senior offensive lineman for Hawaii. Now I have no idea how good an offensive lineman Hercules is or what his pro prospects are. I hope they are good because I would like to see Hercules in the NFL; I would even play an Elton John song whenever he is introduced.

But there's also the chance that Hercules will play his last down of football in Hawaii's last game this season. There's also the chance that the last game could be a win for the Rainbows and they would thus finish the season undefeated. Do they have a chance at being crowned the National Champion. Can I fly without tickets? There's the bias I was talking about.

So "The Hercules Satele Rule" goes something like this. Forget all talk about a playoff. Scrap the BCS. Return to a form of the old bowl setup in which more than one bowl game meant something. Maintain the tradition of the Big 10 champ playing the Pac 10 champ in the Rose Bowl. Now that the Cotton Bowl is moving into the new finest-in-the-universe-without-question-ninth-wionder-of-the-world-my-jumbo-screen-is-bigger-and-brighter-than-your-jumbo-screen-Jerry-Jones-Cowboy-Stadium, make it a New Year's Day elite game in which the SEC champion is the host. Then send the Big East winner to the Orange Bowl, the ACC champ to the Sugar Bowl and the Big 12 champ to the Fiesta Bowl. I could care less who they play, or even who plays in any of the other bowls either. But after all these bowl games are played, find the team with the fewest losses and declare it the National Champion. But what if there are two or more teams tied with the fewest number of losses? That's easy. Declare them co-national champions.

You see, under this system and only under a system like this, Hawaii has a definite shot at being declared a national champion. Which brings me back to Hercules Satele. Even if he never gets to play a down of NFL football, at least someday 30-35 years from now, he could let his granddaughter climb up on his lap, open up the dusty old scrapbook and tell her about the time grandpa won the national championship.

Now, that's what college football should be all about.