It's "Gripe About College Football Season" Again

Plus-one only sensible way to anoint BCS champion from 2010 season - Stewart Mandel - SI.com

A year ago this week I unveiled the Mandel Plan, the only college football postseason model that achieves more clarity without overhauling the bowl system, devaluing the regular season, intruding on December finals or otherwise jeopardizing the status quo that BCS honchos work so hard to defend. College football doesn't need an eight- or 16-team playoff, because there aren't eight or 16 deserving teams in a season. But there are usually four.

The Mandel Plan sure sounds like a great idea - as long as the football gods cooperate and you end up with 4 unbeaten teams. What would you have done in 2004 with Auburn, USC, and OU? Invited Utah? I'm sure Texas and Cal and Louisville and undefeated Boise St would've *loved* your plan then.

What about 1993, when FSU beat Nebraska for their title, and the Golden Domers griped that they were left out of the title game, conveniently ignoring an unbeaten WV team that should've been in the game against Nebraska?

The BCS was created because we kept arguing over who was #1. Now we argue over who's #1 and #2. If we expand the argument to #1, 2, 3, and 4 or - eesh! - all the way out to #16, are we *really* going to cut down on the arguments?
Under your plan, the 2008 'playoff' would've been 2 SEC teams and 2 Big XII teams. Utah (the final #2) never gets in.

Expand 2008 to 8 teams, and now you're leaving out an unbeaten Boise St, as well as the Pac 10, ACC, and Big East champs.

Expand to 8 teams, and now you're telling me that a 9-2 Notre Dame gets in but a 9-2 Auburn or 10-2 VaTech gets left out?
You don't even want to know who gets to play for the title if you expand to 16 teams... (but for laughs, in 2007 you get Tennessee at 9-4, in '04, '08 and '09 you get 3 teams each with 3 losses)

So how about we just stick to the same BCS formula for about 5 years, instead of tinkering with it every year and encouraging the screaming masses who insist that their good idea be implemented every year, without bothering to look at second- and third-order effects over the course of 6 or 8 seasons.