I agree, but I think the solution isn’t a playoff, it’s nonconference scheduling rules. Every BCS conference school must play two OoC games against schools from other BCS conferences. Stage one halfway through the season and the second at the end of the season. Mandate that at least one of the opponents must have been bowl eligible within the two years before the matchup. A lot of schools are already halfway there thanks to traditional rivalries (UF/FSU, UGA/GaTech, and USC/Clemson have served to create a relatively high degree of connectedness between the SEC and ACC over the years, and Notre Dame gives good links between the Big10/12/14 and the Pac10/12), just make the laggards join in, too.

I always say that I love playoffs. They’re like the steak of the sporting world. Steak is wonderful- there exist entire restaurants whose sole reason for existence is the preparation of steak. There are few things on this planet as good as a properly prepared steak. With that said, I don’t want to eat steak for every meal. Sometimes I’m in the mood for some Quesadillas, or Arroz con Pollo, or Chicken Parm, or Crab. Maybe a good jambalaya, or a chowder. Maybe some day I’m in the mood to go out and try Ethiopian. It seems like every league is serving me a massive playoff steak, and that’s great, there’s a reason it’s so popular… but when was it that we decided that, since steak was so good, everything had to be steak? Why can’t we just let some sporting league have a different postseason? Even if it’s not as good, why can’t we just appreciate the variety and, when we really want a playoff, content ourselves with every other major sporting league in the universe? What’s next- playoffs for Gymnastics? For Olympic Swimming and Diving? Playoffs for boxing and MMA? Where does it end?

I think the bigger problem is that in college football, we just don’t know who the best or most deserving teams are. I love the SRS, and I believe in its predictive power, but at the end of the day it is still just educated guesswork.

Alabama has beaten just two teams this year that are ranked — Georgia and LSU. If the top 25 teams all played five or six games against each other, we would know a lot more. Unfortunately, there is just little separating these teams and we are forced to magnify the differences.

If Louisville or Rutgers had gone undefeated, what would we know about them? Without more nonconference games between top teams, it really is all just guesswork. How do we know what to make of Kansas State? The Big 12 did very little out of conference this year. The issue to me is more about confidence levels regarding the best teams than identifying them. We’re much more blind in college football than other sports.