the BCS: sigh, so we're doing this again.

As many of you no doubt already know, it's time for the BCS to decide for us who will be playing in the national championship game, based on the opinions of coaches who don't watch most of the games and computer formulae that outside observers have generally dismissed as "nonsense math." This year will be one of the worst years for the BCS, as there's only one undefeated team in the country, LSU, so they have to pluck one of the one-lossers up to join them in the national championship. The difference in caliber between the various one-lossers? We have no earthly idea, because for the most part, they haven't played each other, nor have their respective conferences played each other except for one or two games.

Dr. Saturday sums it up thusly:

In the meantime, congratulations to Alabama and Oklahoma State (and Stanford, and Boise State, and Oregon, and Wisconsin) on outstanding seasons. You are all worthy. All but one of you is about to get screwed. This is the system you're forced to play in. As for the rest of us, we don't have to play along.

The whole post is great, by the way. Even better is Dan Wetzel's annual takedown of the BCS, this year brewed a little heartier because the system is exposed even more than usual. If you want to know exactly how the system is flawed, check it out. Wetzel's case is ironclad.

He releases a bracket every year to show what games we'd be watching if we scrapped the BCS for a 16 team bracket, and this year it's going to be outstanding.

But back to the BCS: does anybody still defend this system? Dr. Saturday put it best: holding a vote to decide who's the better team, in a game that keeps score, is stupid. What defense could you possibly muster for this asinine system? Tradition? We should keep engaging in this ridiculous exercise because we were stupid enough to do it last year?

And remember, nobody else does this, not even division II college football. They use a playoff, and there's rarely any scandal about a team unfairly left out.