The Alliance worked. Granted, the boys who put this system together got monumentally lucky when Michigan upset Ohio State, thus setting the stage for Tuesday night's winner-take-all national championship game between Nebraska and Florida. But it worked nonetheless, muting the annual cries for a true national championship game.
We wanted it; we got it.And when the Big Ten and Pac-10 come to their senses in time and join the Alliance, the college football world will be treated to similarly provocative matchups year after year.
This is the answer. Not a college Super Bowl as part of some goofy playoff system.
College football can do this without sending the season into overtime, without making these kids - these students - spend another week answering questions like, "Do you have confidence in your running game?" instead of spending quality time in class.
College football can do this without watering down the existing bowl structure. Just do what the Alliance is doing: Move the national title game around to various bowls and leave the other bowls to put together the best matchups possible.
The Alliance worked. And it can work better. This is the answer. Finally.
"I want to thank the folks who put it together," Florida coach Steve Spurrier said. "I thank (ACC commissioner) Gene Corrigan, who first had the idea, and the commissioners of all the conferences.
"Without this Alliance, we'd be back in New Orleans (at the Sugar Bowl) and Nebraska would be back in Miami (in the Orange Bowl) when it would all come down to voting. Without a playoff, this Alliance gives the opportunity for the two teams to play. I'm sure (Huskers coach Tom) Osborne would say the same thing, that we appreciate the guys who made it possible.
"We're sure tired of New Orleans. It's a great place, but four out of five years has been a little much. I'm sure Tom had had enough of Miami."
There still are some defects to the Alliance system, but its imperfections are preferable to a playoff that dilutes the bowls and extends the season beyond reasonable limits. There still is the Rose Bowl Problem, though there is talk the Big Ten and Pac-10 soon will come to their senses and join the Alliance. And there always will be the question of what might happen when more than two teams head into the bowl season with unbeaten records.
This still is the best idea anybody has put into practice.
"I would play as many games as I'd have to if that's what it takes to win a national title," Florida linebacker James Bates said. "But it seems like it goes on and on, and we never get a chance to celebrate. We win the SEC East, we can't celebrate. We win the SEC championship game, we can't celebrate. If you have another game after the Fiesta Bowl, we could win this game and again, we couldn't celebrate."
College football is big enough as it is. We talk ourselves blue in the face about the sport's hypocrisies and excesses, and then we follow that up by saying college ball needs a playoff and a Super Bowl. The bigger this thing gets, the higher the stakes, the more likely it is that people will cut corners to win the big prize.
Already this week, we have seen an NFL-style Super Bowl atmosphere develop around the Fiesta Bowl, a game that is providing the first true No. 1-vs.-No. 2 game since the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, when Penn State beat Vinny Testaverde and Miami. It is an exciting scene, an exciting time, but it is excessive, too, a corporate bacchanal that is every bit as distateful as Super Bowl Hype Week.
The games just get bigger and bigger, richer and richer, and while everybody else is reaping the harvest, the players continue to get nothing beyond their scholarships.
The whole thing smacks more and more of hypocrisy.
The Alliance - or better yet, an Alliance that includes the Rose Bowl - represents a proper compromise: It retains the credibility of the bowl system while satisfying the public appetite for something resembling a true, national championship game.
No question, there has not been a buildup to any bowl game like Tuesday night's Fiesta Bowl in many years. This is more than No. 1 vs. No. 2. It is The Program (Nebraska) vs. The Coach (Steve Spurrier). It is Option Football (Nebraska) vs. Spurrier's Fun 'n Gun, or, as he likes to call it, Air Ball. And, to some degree, there is the undertone of football as morality play, with Nebraska cast, somewhat unfairly, as the black hats vs. Florida's do-gooders.
This should be a classic, a shootout. Make mine Nebraska 38-35.
The Alliance should take a bow.