It isn’t computers but the human factor that is messing up the final BCS football rankings. To the human attention span, old losses do not count as much as recent losses. Poor Missouri was number 1 just a few days ago, but after losing to Oklahoma, they plummeted to number 6 and are completely out of all of the BCS bowls. Yes, they have two losses, but those were both to the same team! Meanwhile, arguably lesser teams with two worse losses got into the big bowls.
Can there be a playoff? These players are all college students, though it is easy to forget, and we have to consider finals, Christmas break, etc., etc., so the argument goes. But here is my solution: Make a shorter season to have room for a series of playoff bowls. This can be done by getting rid of the pre-conference powderpuff games at the beginning of the season. Play only the teams in your conference. Then have the winners of each conference play each other in a tournament set-up until only two are standing, to end it all on New Year’s Day. (With most teams ending their season in November, this would give most players much more time for finals!)
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