It's time to take a byte out of BCS

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Until that morning, it had been only the hardest of hard-core UH fans, mixed with some insomniacs and desperate-to-rally gamblers, who would stay awake past 3 a.m. on the East coast to follow the outcome of the Warriors' games.

But such has been the convoluted formula for setting the national championship pairing that the result of that Warriors game helped determine whether Southern California, a UH opponent 84 days earlier, would get to play for the BCS national championship. And, alas, UH's 45-28 loss to Boise State helped shut USC out of the title game by 0.16 of a point.

Anytime somebody — in this case the Warriors and Broncos — play a game that has absolutely no impact upon even the Western Athletic Conference championship or the Associated Press poll (Boise State's No. 18 standing went unchanged), but has a crucial role in setting the national championship matchup, something needs to be fixed.

We're told that reckoning comes today when the BCS will announce its new, revised (again), super-dooper formula to end all controversy and set the matchup for its championship game. A little late for Louisiana State and USC, which were forced to split the national title, perhaps, but better late than never, as has become the motto at BCS headquarters.

Now, the folks who made it possible to leave a legitimate claimant out of the title game three times in four years, are back at it again, tweaking and tinkering something that deserves to be completely blown up.

Early word is that today's announcement may slightly reduce the role of computers in deciding the championship pairings. We're told the AP and coaches polls will remain elements of the process but that factors in the computer program such as quality wins, strength of schedule, etc., will be eliminated or re-written.

Why the BCS is determined to hug its computers at all remains unclear. Especially when some of the finest minds of our times — sportswriters and football coaches, of course — had it right with USC and LSU. It was those damned appliances, the computers, that decided otherwise.

The real solution is easy if hardly novel: Have a playoff. Seed a number of teams, and decide the issue on the field, where it should be settled. Every other level of football does. Indeed, every NCAA sport does.

But that would be too easy and, more to the point, might take some of the fat cash cow away from the conferences that control the $89.9 million annual BCS payout.

Failing that, chuck the appliances entirely. If it must be put to a vote, then leave it to the humans.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.