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Well ... maybe after the season you should petition for a rule change. But the way the BCS is set up, the title game is between the two best teams. It's the way the rankings are set up; it's the way the rules work. Explicitly. No ambiguity. It's what was agreed to prior to the season.

If Michigan is the better team in the eyes of the voters and in the computer rankings, they go; and they deserve to go. And I object to voters casting their ballots strategically. They should rank the teams according to the instructions they've been given from the start -- not who they want to go to the title game.

Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000. Many people say an injustice was done, because the electoral college is antiquated. Would you agree with that, too? Or would you say that Bush won under the rules that were in place at the time, and that's what matters?

Florida's coach is a wuss and a whiner and for that reason alone I hope Florida heads elsewhere. If Michigan comes out on top, they go. You and he can have all the air time you want quarrelling with the rules in the off-season. Don't be a poor loserman.

But the way the BCS is set up, the title game is between the two best teams. It's the way the rankings are set up; it's the way the rules work. Explicitly. No ambiguity.

But that isn't the way it is. That's the point.

Without a playoff system it all comes down to personal judgment and prejudices, particularly in years like this one.

Meanwhile, Urban Meyer is getting slammed by Big 10 fans and their fawning media for "campaigning" for the right to play for the national championship. Lloyd Carr is praised for supposedly staying above the fray.

Meyer recognizes the BSC fraud for what it is: a political decision wearing a computer-ranking fig leaf of "objectivity." In deciding political matters, the campaign element is essential.

After demanding so much from his banged-up and battered team this year Meyer is working his own tail off to get them into the big event. That's loyalty flowing from the top down and potential recruits to the University of Florida are going to notice it.

Personally, I don't expect any team to beat Ohio State in the national championship game. But Florida has as good a chance as anybody, including Michigan which has already tried and failed more convincingly than the final score would indicate.

In any event, an incestuous championship game involving the number one and two teams from the same conference who have already played each other once and settled the matter, is just too tacky for my taste.

Let's give the Gators a chance.

...It's the way the rankings are set up; it's the way the rules work. Explicitly. No ambiguity. It's what was agreed to prior to the season.

All true, and illustrates everything that is wrong with college football. The BCS should never have been implemented. It was a marketing ploy for television which fed off the juvenile obsession with a coronated "Number One." College ball was better off without an "official" title game.

The old bowl system was far better, with selected matchups and even some of the predetermined bowls like the old Rose Bowl. If two undefeated teams didn't happen to meet, and the coaches' poll picked one and the writers' poll picked the other, then the fans had a great subject to debate and argue about for the next year.

The current situation is a perfect case in point. Under the old system Ohio State would be playing Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl, and Florida would be playing possibly Michigan, or even Louisville in the Cotton or Sugar bowl. Say both OSU and Florida won their bowls. Both schools and fans could have a high old time claiming to be the best, and no one would know for sure, and that would be fine because it doesn't matter anyway.