It's been a dream season for the Penn State football team, but now the Nittany Lions are just playing for second place.
No matter what happens Jan. 3 in the Orange Bowl against Florida State, Joe Paterno's 10-1 team has no shot at a national championship. That will be settled a day later when Texas and Southern California meet in the Rose Bowl.
Bowl Championship Series officials are feeling good about their system because they have a dream matchup between the nation's only 12-0 teams, but what kind of convoluted mechanism would it take to put anyone else except the Longhorns and Trojans in the national title game?
In truth, the BCS got very lucky this year. Consider USC quarterback Matt Leinart's fumble that rolled out of bounds in the closing seconds of an October game with Notre Dame. That good fortune allowed the Trojans to run one final play and turn defeat into victory.
Had USC lost that game, Texas would have been the nation's only unbeaten team, with the Trojans, Fighting Irish and Nittany Lions all with one loss and with strong arguments for a spot in the Rose Bowl.
There are many problems with the BCS. One shows up with Penn State's Orange Bowl opponent -- the 8-4 Seminoles -- who were able to reach a prime bowl game with four losses because they upset Virginia Tech in the ACC title contest.
What college football has long needed -- and resisted -- is a playoff system that would allow the teams to decide a champion in a head-to-head competition. Virtually all other college sports have one, and even football does at every level below Division 1-A.
The BCS is a failing experiment that usually causes more problems than it solves. We encourage the NCAA to take a new look at a playoff system.
