I find the College Football Universe a curious one.
I have always felt it was a conflicted place where millions of dollars are made off of the efforts of amateur athletes in the name of educational institutions. It is an uncomfortable and sometimes even unseemly marriage of two worlds that don't always coexist peacefully.
But as I listened to several talk radio pundits debate whether Florida deserved to be ranked No. 1 when its first two opponents were the unimpressive Charleston Southern and Troy, I realized just how contradictory that much-loved level of football really is.
Is there any other sport – at any level – where a team has to be perfect in order to have the hope of playing for the league's top prize? Perfection is so rare in sports, in life, that when someone manages it, we are enthralled.
But most success stories do not come without detours, disappointment and, yes, a few losses.
Think about those we admire who have suffered – more than once – the agony of defeat: the mighty Tiger Woods, super-swimmer Michael Phelps and even the machine-like Lance Armstrong.
But in college football if you lose – even just one game – you've likely blown any chance to play for a national title. So forgive Florida if it wants to play teams like Charleston Southern and Troy to keep those national title dreams alive.
I don't blame Urban Meyer for scheduling teams the Gators will likely have no trouble beating. I blame those who created a system in which playing it safe is rewarded, even encouraged.
College football is divided into the BCS schools (the haves) and the rest (the have-nots). Even when the have-nots rise up and defeat the BCS schools, they are treated with polite disdain. No one really respects them. No one really believes they belong in the room with the elites. They're tolerated. They're paid. And then they're sent home.
They had their moment, which is met with a small reward and entreaties to go back to where they came from.
College football is a world where coaches plot and strategize against the other teams in the league, but then hope and pray for those same squads to win. That's because the stronger your vanquished opponent, the higher your BCS rating. And it's a numbers game, in college football, that gets you invited to the money-making bowl games.
College football is a world where reputations matter long after they should. Notre Dame has not been a team of any importance for years, but still those who vote on these matters can't resist the "tradition" of the Irish program.
College football is a world where we give a lot of lip service to the fact that these are students first, athletes second. Then we turn around and offer the best opportunities to the highest bidders.
The most gut-wrenching, conflicted part of this whole BCS debacle is that the elites have hijacked football. This is a game that couldn't be more blue-collar. Few sports are as physically demanding and permanently damaging as football, but the decisions about who plays where and which teams have what opportunities are made by guys in suits who think two-a-days are getting a massage AND a pedicure.
How did this happen? Why are football fans, players and coaches allowing it to continue?
How can we listen to an honest discussion about which teams should be ranked when every team doesn't even have a chance to be in the conversation?
No doubt football has become America's sport, and college football is hugely popular because it connects so many people to the communities in which they live or the schools where they chose to be educated.
The system for deciding a national champion, however, is as un-American as it gets. It's a situation that leaves everyone but the accountants uncomfortable.
Sadly, I will watch these games this weekend knowing that some teams will have to tilt windmills just to get into the peripheral BCS bowl games.
There really is no chance that a team like BYU, Utah, TCU or Boise State will ever be considered good enough to play for a national title. Not in this universe. Not even if they're perfect.
e-mail: adonaldson@desnews.com