Bowled Under

The solons of the Bowl Championship Series last week unveiled its latest format, which, though new, is not improved. Say hello to the double-hosting model, whose biggest selling point is that it doesn't kick in for another two years.

Faced with the unpleasant prospect of losing lawsuits to Division I football's peasantry, whose conferences have grown tired of missing out on fat BCS bowl paydays, the BCS commissioners added a fifth game (and two more at-large berths) to their postseason format. After a halfhearted search for another host city ( Orlando, in particular, was allowed to get its hopes up), the commissioners opted for the double-hosting model, a.k.a. the piggyback model. The latter usage is the more accurate, calling to mind as it does a picture of the commissioners with their noses in a trough.

In this format each of the four BCS bowls—Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar—will host two games once every four years. The first will be its regular game; the second, the national title game. The piggyback model, said one committee member, "is the least disruptive to current relationships between individual conferences and the individual bowls." (We can all thank God for that. We wouldn't want any current relationships disrupted.) To the average fan the problem with the BCS is simple: In years when there are three one-loss teams—last season, for instance—it fails to deliver a clear-cut national champion. The solution most frequently put forward is to treat two of the BCS games each year like semifinals, then play one more to determine a champion. But well-intentioned university presidents have long frowned on this so-called plus-one approach, decrying a lengthened season even as they ignore the fact that football teams in Division II and III have been playing their way through playoff brackets for decades, and the Earth continues to spin on its axis. In short, the new system only adds to the confusion. The only people pleased about this arrangement are the owners of those stridently colored bowl blazers, who will reap a quadrennial windfall from this game, which is, as yet, unnamed. For all the clarity it brings to the picture, let's call it the Mud Bowl.