For Once, BCS is Avoiding Controversy

With the college football season coming to a close, the participants for this year's national championship game are pretty close to being finalized. Victories by the USC Trojans and Texas Longhorns moved them one step closer to making the trip to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl, while another team fell from the ranks of the unbeaten.

The Alabama Crimson Tide lost to the LSU Tigers by a score of 16-13 in overtime giving them their first loss. Their loss leaves Texas and USC as the only teams without a loss in Division 1 football.

With only these two teams left, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) has finally seemed to get if right. Watching the games this past weekend, it became evident that USC and Texas are the two most complete teams in college football. The Trojans have faced great adversity this season with close games against Notre Dame, Arizona State, and Oregon. They have stood tall through it all and now, after defeating California on Saturday, the Trojans have a 32-game winning streak.

The Longhorns also appear to be heading towards a second straight Rose Bowl appearance. Texas has won 17-straight games, including a 42-17 victory over archrival Oklahoma. This was Texas's first defeat of Oklahoma in five years.

What Texas and USC have done is, for this moment, free the BCS of any controversy. Controversy has followed and plagued the BCS ever since its inception in 1998. In the seven years of its existence, the BCS has had controversies in at least five of those years.

Two weeks ago, this season looked to continue a recent trend of BCS controversies. In 2003, the Trojans finished 10-1 on to see the LSU Tigers and the Oklahoma Sooners, both 10-1, play for the national championship. The next year, in 2004, three teams, Oklahoma, USC, and Auburn finished undefeated, but only have USC and Oklahoma play in the national championship game.

However, former unbeaten teams Virginia Tech, UCLA, and Alabama all have lost over the past two weekends, creating the two-team system that was envisioned when the BCS was created.

This season will not answer the critics of the BCS, who feel that a playoff system would be better for college football. The critics are correct, a playoff system is needed in college football but in the absence of one, the BCS is the best available thing. As one of my good friends stated, "The championship of college football is not decided on the field, but rather in polls."

While the BCS has helped to make an improvement upon that, it was never intended to be the final solution to a problem that has been around college football for over 100 years. The first contract with the BCS was signed only from 1998 until the end of the 2006 bowl season. So while the BCS can be classified as a failure, this failure can pull the university presidents and such closer to having an actual playoff.

The BCS is already moving closer to a playoff, with the addition of an extra bowl game at the end of the season next year. There are those who say that the BCS is a flawed system that only works when there are two teams to make it work, but the BCS proposes the best non-playoff idea that college football has. And while the BCS benefits from this year, the tide will quickly turn if USC or Texas loses, and create the havoc that no one wants to see.

How long this havoc stays away depends on the ability of Texas and USC to continue winning and remain the top two teams in America. Judging from their performances, the Trojans and the Longhorns appear to be the perfect medicine for any BCS headache.