Coaches, fans continue to voice BCS complaints

May we do a bit of football meandering while pursuing the stuffing and turkey leftovers?

Not only is it the holiday shopping season, but it’s time to once again enjoy the annual BCS bowl-bashing extravaganza. This is the yearly slamming of the current Division I-A college football rating system.

This system involves a coaches poll, a writers poll, and six computer polls. The idea is to find the top two teams at the end of the season and have them play a championship game.

Bashing the BCS are those who seek a playoff system, none more bashing than television networks that would make another fortune off such a set of games.

Urban Meyer, head coach at Florida, has cried out against the possibility that this year Ohio State and Michigan might appear in the championship game after having just played last weekend for the No. 1 spot – won by Ohio State.

If they are the best two teams, why shouldn’t they play again?

Another coach has cried out, “Who are these people deciding the ratings?”

Well, “they” are the coaches, who usually give the job of voting to someone on their staff because it is impossible for them to know who the best teams are. They are too busy coaching.

“They” are the writers who follow college football all year and have a pretty good handle on the teams.

“They” are the computer organizations who have desperately tried to include in their software all the factors that determine the quality of a team. They must measure and grade teams that never play one another.

The process has worked swimmingly well if you care to look. Ohio State and Michigan have completed their regular seasons.

Ohio State is No. 1, no arguments. Michigan and USC are Nos. 2 and 3, close as a baby’s kiss on your nose. No argument. USC has Notre Dame and UCLA to play.

Florida and Arkansas come next and they will meet in the SEC championship game next week, so one of them will be gone from consideration to be No. 1 or 2 and both must win this week to keep their hopes alive.

Notre Dame lost to Michigan. It will be mighty hard for the Irish, even with one loss, to claim they have a right to vault over Michigan in light of that loss.

The bowls used to be a reward for a strong season. Like Michigan and Ohio State, teams used to sit a month before they played on New Year’s Day and didn’t worry about it.

Now, conference championships in some leagues and the added 12th game this year have extended the season for some. That creates a real potential unfairness in the BCS championship game that could include a team that hasn’t played for six weeks against a team that played three weeks before the title game.

Bowl games are now as numerous as the gravy stains on your shirt. The BCS bowls have contracts with conferences that determine matchups. The rest of the bowls are about making money, and the matchups are primarily based on that.

I have long opposed a playoff system as a money grab by the football factories that will further remove them from the rest of college football and remove football at those schools further from the university.

The BCS gets it done and everyone can argue about who’s No. 1 over turkey and gravy. Perfect.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and ABC sportscaster.