Doug Robinson: College football: Bowl lineup again leaves us begging for (no) more

Answer: Not very well. If it did, we would rid ourselves of automatic tie-ins for conference winners and BCS bowls — like the one that let 8-5, unranked Wisconsin into the Rose Bowl. If our formula worked, we'd rely solely on the rankings and fill the five BCS bowls with the top 10 ranked teams. Thus, we would have 1 vs. 2, 3 vs. 4, 5 vs. 6, 7 vs. 8 and 9 vs. 10. But that makes too much sense, so instead we have No. 21 playing No. 3 and No. 6 playing an unranked team and so forth.

Question: So how does the BCS standings formula work? It's simple really ...

Answer: The BCS standings — also known as a poll — utilizes a formula that consists of a coaches' poll, the Harris Interactive College Football Poll, an average of six computer rankings, multiplied by the hypotenuse of the square root and the denominator, plus the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the year. We think the formula was created by Stephen Hawking. Anyway, it works so well that each December we get all the old tired arguments about who deserves what bowl and strength of schedule and who beat whom.

Question: What is the BCS's current contract arrangement?

Answer: To feature as many bowls as possible — 35 this year — and, more importantly, to ensure that the bowls have the silliest commercial names. Why? Because we are complete sellouts. Imagine being a college senior who has dreamed all his life to play in a bowl game and he has to tell his grandkids someday that he played in the (fill in the blank — Belk Bowl, Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, the TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl, or, my personal favorite, the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl). There is also the BBVA Compass Bowl. What does BBVA stand for? I have no idea.

Email: drob@desnews.com