As college football's regular season nears the half-way mark, a young boy's fancy turns to thoughts of the BCS and the national championship game. Dozens of polls are out there, and as often as the powers that be tweak the BCS formula, there will still be people ready to step up and complain about it.
As for me, I won't be completely happy until they scrap the whole thing and go back to the old bowl system, which seemed to work just fine for fifty years. But since that will never happen, I thought I'd come up with my own BCS -- the Broken Cowboy System for determining the best team in the land.
Alright, it's not really a system, just an excuse for me to write about some of the teams in the running. So here goes.
First, the only teams eligible are the undefeated teams, of which seven remain. Let's take a look at the contenders, in reverse order:
7. Texas Tech
This is a nice story. All I know about Texas Tech is that the fans have a tradition of throwing tortillas on the field. As much as I like that, it's not enough to give them a national championship. Nice year, fellas.
First Loss: October 22 at Texas. And I don't think it'll be pretty.
6. UCLA
This is also a nice story -- gotta love those scrappy lil' Bruins. There's even been some talk out here in LA about UCLA possibly running the table and reaching its December showdown with USC at 11-0. As much as I'd like to see that happen, just so that the national college football media would have to take a break from its east coast fixation to fly out to SoCal and check in on the biggest game of the year. Sadly, I don't see it happening. The Bruins have had far too many near misses, and the train is about to jump the tracks.
First Loss: October 29 at Stanford. I have no business making this prediction, but it's too late now.
5. Georgia
Not much to say about the Bulldogs except that I really used to love Herschell Walker. They couldn't win a national championship with him, and they won't this year without him.
First Loss: October 29 at Florida. This will be the biggest game of Florida's season, and the Gators won't leave anything in the bag.
4. Virginia Tech
And so Virginia Tech scores only 28 points against Maryland? Kind of confusing. Marcus Vick seems like the real deal, but it won't be enough.
First Loss: November 5 vs. Miami. The Hurricanes will still be trying to figure out a way into the national championship game, so they'll be sharp.
3. Alabama
You know where the Tide was ranked in most pre-season publications? About thirty or forty spots out of the top 25, that's wear. The fact that they've gotten this deep into the season without a loss should be cause enough for celebration, but they've got a more wins left on the schedule. Sadly, they won't reach the top of the mountain.
First Loss: SEC Championship Game vs. Georgia. And the BCS breathes a huge sigh of relief.
2. Texas
Ah, Texas. Why does everyone love Texas so. Yes, they're good, and yes, Vince Young is a magician in the pocket, but they're still not the best team in the land.
First Loss: BCS Championship Game, January 1 vs. USC in the Rose Bowl. Basically it comes down to this. Given four weeks to prepare for the Longhorns, Pete Carroll will certaily come up with something Young hasn't seen, and they'll march to the victory.
1. USC
Here's all you need to know: Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, Lendale White. Texas won't have an answer for this.
First Loss: 2006, after push their current winning streak up to forty games.
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