A perfect season should yield a bigger reward.
College football has a real credibility problem.
Thanks to the University of Utah's dominating win over Alabama in Friday's Sugar Bowl, the NCAA's failure to take control of its football championship — yielding to a money mercenary called the BCS — was again exposed.
Short of calling the BCS a fraud, it is a significantly flawed system of determining a college football champion.
It is patently unfair and goes against the spirit of competition that rules in every other NCAA sport.
For the third time in five years a non-BCS school (Utah in 2004 and 2008 and Boise State in 2006) ended its season unbeaten, untied and uninvited to play for a national championship. Utah is 2-0 in BCS games, and the 2004 team, in my opinion, was superior to the one that whipped Alabama.
While the Utes and Broncos were included in a BCS bowl game and triumphed, a system created to keep them out of the title picture did just that and only adds to the controversy and debate of the controversial system.
The BCS, created to stage a championship, places a lot of weight in favor of teams from the six BCS conferences in the title game selection. Using human polls and two computer rankings that place a big emphasis on strength of schedule and margin of victory, we will get No. 1 Florida playing No. 2 Oklahoma on Thursday night for the title.
Trouble is both Florida and Oklahoma lost games this season.
Florida lost to an unranked Mississippi on its home field. Oklahoma lost to then-ranked No. 5 Texas by 10 points.
Utah, ranked No. 6, finished the season 13-0 with victories over four ranked teams, including Friday's win over Alabama, a squad ranked No. 1 for five weeks.
Should Utah have received more serious consideration for an appearance in a championship game? Should Boise State, undefeated in 2006 and victorious over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, have received the same opportunity?
If the answer is no, then perhaps the championship in this sport should be determined after a series of playoff games have run their course. Sounds only fair for teams that never lost a game.
Utah's victim, the Crimson Tide, held the No. 1 spot longer than any other college team this season. Southern Cal was ranked No. 1 for four weeks before losing to Oregon State.
And that brings us to whom Utah defeated in Rice-Eccles Stadium back in September — Oregon State.
This leaves only Utah and Florida to have defeated Alabama, a team the BCS system determined was the best team in the country for the longest period of time, a team coached by the national coach of the year, Nick Saban, shown regularly on TV melting down.
Of course, the system that divvied up Thursday's championship didn't expect Utah to be capable of defeating Alabama back in early December when BCS bowl matchups were determined.
Then comes another argument by USC.
If you tuned into the Rose Bowl Jan. 1 in Pasadena and listened to ABC-TV's so-called "experts" Kirk Herbstreit, Brent Musburger and Keyshawn Johnson, USC deserves consideration to be ranked No. 1 and declared the national champion after beating Penn State.
Johnson, whom ABC handed air time to give recruiting pitches for USC on national TV, made his case that seven USC players would be taken in the NFL draft. By reputation, by consistent success, by talent, by coaching, some would argue a national title game shouldn't be staged without USC these days.
Say what?
Some argue the Trojans are the most dominating program in the country. Said Herbstreit: "USC is like Tiger Woods playing golf — they are so dominant."
Well, that might be, except the night USC, playing with supermen, lost to Oregon State, a team that lost to Utah. Secondly, didn't USC play in a league (the Pac-10) that went 1-6 against the Mountain West this past regular season?
Now I'm not arguing that Florida and Oklahoma do not deserve to play for the national championship. They meet because the existing system placed them to face off on Thursday, even if folks at USC feel slighted.
The current system has "slighted" written all over its glittery money-driven marquee face.
This system falls short of determining a champion, and if it puts a glass ceiling on non-BCS teams like Utah, the nation's only undefeated team, it doesn't reward perfection.
Utah's win over Alabama shattered the BCS trump card that elevates strength of schedule by members of the six BCS conferences. Alabama was supposed to physically dominate Utah. Didn't happen.
Simply put, the utopian idea that any team, on a given day, can beat another, held inspiringly true with the destiny-bound Utes.
Can a college football title ever be fair?
You can see the confusion over what is equitable in the system by events of this season and Utah's triumph.
It may be more fair to return to the old system where two single polls, composedof humans, representing each part of the country, simply vote on who is No. 1. Then you don't mess with the lucrative bowl tradition and you don't have to create a playoff.
Or, it might be fair to add an eight or 16-team playoff.
One thing is certain after Utah's victory, if the BCS system remains in play, Utah's Mountain West Conference deserves an automatic bid just like the Pac-10, Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 12 and Big Ten.
Even then, the BCS would creep into the "more fair" realm while the NCAA fundamentally wades in a stinky pool where a national champion is allegedly crowned.
E-mail: harmon@desnews.com