Once again, the BCS mugs college football fans

Another year has come and gone. Another "National Champion" has been crowned.

All hail Louisiana State University! Finest college football team in the land!*

(* We think so. At least, um, we're reasonably sure, given the one game we had to play, and the convoluted human / computer hybrid poll we used to make the game in the first place.)

The almost always unsatisfying way college football ends its season, carries on, now deep into this new century and against all odds.

I remember talking about how we needed a playoff in Division 1 when my radio career began in 1991!

I've been receiving annual e-mails from fans proposing elaborate playoff brackets for football. They include ways to nest existing "Bowl Games" into the 8-, 16-, and even 32-team playoff formats.

I get new twists and suggestions on how to do it every year. People are deeply passionate and think their plan really does have a chance, if only somebody would think about it!

But here we are, bummed out that a warmed over Ohio State team got served for the second straight year, while many of us were salivating over a Georgia-LSU throwdown.

You want change? You'll get nothing. And like it!

Did you see the stands at the Superdome? Full, weren't they?

Did you notice the corporate sponsor of the game, Allstate? They paid for that. A lot.

Did you see the game on public access TV, or did Fox pour a lot of glitz and glam into the affair? Uh huh.

Grab a Snickers, people.

For a good laugh, you can read a sampling of articles like this, which have been clamoring for a playoff for years.

Back in 2001, a sports marketing firm by the name of ISL actually threw a playoff format together, offered a $3 billion guarantee over eight years, and tried desperately to get the university presidents and athletic directors to hear their pitch.

They didn't even get lunch.

You want the mindset of the provincial old white men who profit from how things are now? Here, suck on this:

"You would have to pry a national championship [tournament] from my cold, dead fingers," said Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State. "My view is a simple one. Any notion of a college football playoff system is absolute nonsense."

Nonsense. His word.

This is like a president of a major national homebuilder clinging to the virtues of outhouses instead of bathrooms and pledging to fight against indoor plumbing until his last breath.

Not only have most team sports had championship playoffs for years, but even the individual sports like golf and NASCAR are welding "playoff-like" structures onto their seasons in an effort to add excitement.

The old fogies like Gee, believe - and they are true believers in this - that a playoff would ruin the regular season in college football. Ruin. I kid you not.

Stewart Mandel of SI.com had this jaw dropping exchange with Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese.

"Whenever my [league's] presidents have asked me about the positives and negatives of a playoff, I tell them the two positives are [more] money and people will stop yelling and screaming," said Tranghese.

"And the negative is that the value and meaning of the regular season will be diminished. Playoff proponents who say that's not true -- that's just pure stupidity."

Tranghese points to Pittsburgh's upset of West Virginia the final night of the regular season, a riveting game that severely impacted the national championship picture. "If there had been a playoff, who would have watched that game?" he said. "It would have no meaning. West Virginia would already be in the playoff.

"The BCS has created what I call cross-watching," said Tranghese. "An LSU fan had interest in that game, an Ohio State fan had interest in that game. Most of that would go away if we had a football playoff -- that is one thing I'm certain of.

"The one thing [all] of us are in agreement on is there isn't going to be a playoff," said Tranghese.

Wonderful.

You can't argue with this level of paranoia and closed-mindedness. It's the "Hey, outhouses are great for fresh air, and a secluded moment to do your business without being bothered!"

It would be like telling your wife. "Honey, we can do anything you want this year for the holidays, except for the fact that I am IN NO WAY going to your parents house for Thanksgiving dinner."

The one bit of good news, is that Monday's game was down 17 percent in the ratings. The game was the third-lowest rated title game in the 10-year history of the BCS.

But then again, the cash registers keep ringing for the NCAA and its member schools at the DI level. Until they go quiet, enjoy the crapper in the back, and don't forget to take the toilet paper.