Who's No. 1? The question nags continually at college football and is sure to heat up as the holidays arrive with their annual buffet of 19 bowl games.
The consensus from the polls is that unbeaten Nebraska and once-beaten Florida State will decide the championship when they meet New Year's night at the Federal Express Orange Bowl in Miami.Consensus, maybe, but that won't stop fans everywhere from ringing in the new year with cries for a playoff or tournament to stop the ballot-box bickering.
"Most everybody, in theory, would like a playoff," Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne said, "to settle it on the field."
The NCAA settles its Division I-A, Division II and Division III championships in a playoff format. Proposals surface every year for Division I-A to adopt a similar plan, or at least to modify the postseason structure to allow for a limited playoff between two or four teams after the bowl games.
The latest plan came last week from folks at the Jeep-Eagle Aloha Bowl, who suggested the top four teams meet on consecutive weekends in early January. In Honolulu, of course.
Is this all just talk?
"I think we are (moving closer to a playoff)," Miami coach Dennis Erickson said. "Just look at the way it turned out. There are four teams that deserve to play for a national championship, and it's just not going to happen."
Arizona Coach Dick Tomey added, "It's just a matter of when the dollars become so seductive that the presidents are going to go for it."
Former NCAA Executive Director Dick Schultz recognized the financial opportunity in suggesting a serious look at a playoff at last year's convention. Opposition came from the usual places: school presidents concerned about an overemphasis on athletics and bowl officials fearing a loss of prestige.
"I just hope people will understand the need to involve the bowls in these discussions," said John Junker, executive director of the Fiesta Bowl. "Our communities have invested millions of dollars."
The bowls also pay out more than $80 million to schools. The financial stakes are already high.
Anyway, wasn't the bowl coalition supposed to end most of these problems? And isn't it working? In its two years, the coalition produced match-ups between the top two teams in the consensus rankings.
"The coalition, to me, is working the way it was set up," said Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden, whose team is No. 1 in The Associated Press poll and No. 2 in the bowl-coalition rankings. "As long as people vote, there's going to be controversy. If we had a playoff, wouldn't there be a controversy over who got jilted and didn't get in? To me, the coalition is the playoff, and we got in."
That's the rub. If there's a playoff, who gets in? And who decides?
Let's say the NCAA adopted the Aloha's idea to bring the top four teams to Hawaii. Let's also say the oddsmakers are right: Florida State beats Nebraska, Florida beats West Virginia, Notre Dame beats Texas A&M, Tennessee beats Penn State, Miami beats Arizona, and Ohio State beats Brigham Young.
Pick four teams from: Florida State, 12-1; Nebraska, 11-1; Notre Dame, 11-1; West Virginia, 11-1; Tennessee, 10-1-1; Ohio State, 10-1-1; and Miami, 10-2.
Seriously, what chance does West Virginia have in that set-up?
"Nobody has presented a plan that would work," Mountaineers Coach Don Nehlen said. "That's why some of us are not overjoyed at having a playoff plan."
As long as teams can't play their way into a playoff, problems exist. Consider the Florida State-West Virginia debate. Which deserved a shot at Nebraska? Florida State played a rugged schedule, dominated nearly every opponent, but had one bad afternoon at Notre Dame. West Virginia played a far easier schedule, barely beat the better teams it faced, but still emerged without a scratch.
Nehlen points out that his team did everything it could and shouldn't be penalized for a schedule drawn up years ago, but Bowden counters that a tough schedule should offer some reward.
A team can't do better than unbeaten, but, of course, schedule matters. As Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz clarified with a biting touch of sarcasm: "I don't understand why Penn isn't playing for the national championship. They went 10-0, didn't they?"
On and on. As long as people vote, the controversy rages. The logical solution is a 16-team playoff. It works in Division I-AA, Division II and Division III. Those schools meet the expanded schedule with far fewer scholarship players (none in Division III) and manage to handle the academic conflicts.
Auburn's Terry Bowden, whose Tigers were 11-0 but ineligible for postseason play because of probation, coached at the Division I-AA and Division III levels and sees no reason the system wouldn't work in Division I-A.
To avoid byes and guarantee automatic bids for champions from the eight major conferences, it would have to be a 16-team tournament. The other eight spots would be determined by a selection committee, much like the basketball tournament chooses its at-large teams.
Griping wouldn't cease, but the argument would be whether No. 17 or No. 18 is better than No. 15 or No. 16. It wouldn't be an argument over No. 1.
This playoff system works in the lower divisions because the bowl system doesn't exist. But it does exist in Division I-A, and that's a problem.
Those who want to combine the systems by having the bowls serve as sites for tournament games ignore the reality of the bowl set-up.
The bowl machinery doesn't operate in a one-week cycle. Basketball arenas can sell 15,000 advance tickets for tournament games without knowing the teams, but a 60,000-seat stadium is a tougher problem.
Further, many communities tie their bowl games to wider holiday celebrations. For example, the Tournament of Roses and the Orange Bowl Festival are major events that include a football game. Telling Miami to play the Orange Bowl on Dec. 15 just isn't feasible.
Of course, the NCAA could begin a December tournament and keep the bowl schedule as it is. Crown the champion by midmonth and then turn the bowl games into fun-only trips for players, which school and bowl officials contend is the purpose of such games in the first place.
That works until the champion loses its bowl game. Then the debate flares anew. Who really is No. 1? Maybe there's just no way to meet all the wants and for all.
So we have the polls, which give us a mythical title game between Nebraska and Florida State in the Orange Bowl. And that's fine - for Nebraska, Florida State and the Orange Bowl.
"I've never won one, and Tom Osborne has never won one," Bowden said, referring to the final No. 1 ranking. "Unless we tie, one of us is fixing to get one."