Utah Utes football: Flawless U. exposes flawed BCS bowl system

College football has a real credibility problem.

Thanks to the University of Utah's dominating win over Alabama in Friday's Sugar Bowl, the NCAA's failure to take control of its football championship — yielding to a money mercenary called the BCS — was again exposed.

Short of calling the BCS a fraud, it is a significantly flawed system of determining a college football champion.

It is patently unfair and goes against the spirit of competition that rules in every other NCAA sport.

For the third time in five years a non-BCS school (Utah in 2004 and 2008 and Boise State in 2006) ended its season unbeaten, untied and uninvited to play for a national championship. Utah is 2-0 in BCS games, and the 2004 team, in my opinion, was superior to the one that whipped Alabama.

While the Utes and Broncos were included in a BCS bowl game and triumphed, a system created to keep them out of the title picture did just that and only adds to the controversy and debate of the controversial system.

The BCS, created to stage a championship, places a lot of weight in favor of teams from the six BCS conferences in the title game selection. Using human polls and two computer rankings that place a big emphasis on strength of schedule and margin of victory, we will get No. 1 Florida playing No. 2 Oklahoma on Thursday night for the title.

Trouble is both Florida and Oklahoma lost games this season.

Florida lost to an unranked Mississippi on its home field. Oklahoma lost to then-ranked No. 5 Texas by 10 points.

Utah, ranked No. 6, finished the season 13-0 with victories over four ranked teams, including Friday's win over Alabama, a squad ranked No. 1 for five weeks.

Should Utah have received more serious consideration for an appearance in a championship game? Should Boise State, undefeated in 2006 and victorious over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, have received the same opportunity?

If the answer is no, then perhaps the championship in this sport should be determined after a series of playoff games have run their course. Sounds only fair for teams that never lost a game.

Utah's victim, the Crimson Tide, held the No. 1 spot longer than any other college team this season. Southern Cal was ranked No. 1 for four weeks before losing to Oregon State.

And that brings us to whom Utah defeated in Rice-Eccles Stadium back in September — Oregon State.

This leaves only Utah and Florida to have defeated Alabama, a team the BCS system determined was the best team in the country for the longest period of time, a team coached by the national coach of the year, Nick Saban, shown regularly on TV melting down.

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