At the start of the college football season, 119 teams all had a chance to win the BCS National Title, right? Well, that is, of course, if you believe that the BCS is a fair system that gives each team an equal opportunity to win it. Hello? Utah, anybody?

While I did indeed select Florida as my preseason pick to win the National Title, I’m not so certain that it did indeed deserve the honor. Though Florida did win the National Title Game, win (arguably) the best conference in the Football Bowl Subdivision and defeat six ranked-at-the-time opponents, it had one thing Utah didn’t - a loss on its resume.

The Utes - who hail from the “almighty” and “respected” Mountain Western Conference - had a perfect season, unless of course you’re a computer or an Associated Press member who feels that their schedule was inferior to schools from the Southeastern Conference, Big 12, etc.

If you had been following this blog throughout the season, you would remember that I never once thought Alabama ought to have been ranked No. 1. The Crimson Tide failed to impress me all season long, with the exception of when they crushed the Bulldogs for one half. If the Utes victory over the Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl was not enough to convince pollsters, who thought Alabama was so great, that the Utes should be No. 1, let’s pray that if will have some type of impact on them next season when either Boise State or Utah goes undefeated again and no other FBS team achieves that feat.

If it were up to me, the championship game would have been decided between the only two undefeated major college teams in the land - the Utes and the Broncos.

But enough about that, how about those other three BCS games?

Texas was so concerned about not making the National Title Game that it nearly forgot to show up to the Fiesta Bowl. Had the Longhorns been more focused on the Buckeyes and not the Big 12 screw-job it received, they would have routed their opposition instead of squeaking by on a last-minute touchdown drive to win by three points.

And how about that Rose Bowl? People outside of Southern California must be getting sick of seeing the Trojans, as I had predicted here, trample the Big 10. Again. How many more times will Pete Carroll get to embarrass the Big 10? My guess is, every year until he retires. The Trojans always seem to struggle against one inferior Pacific-10 team and get shutout of the National Title Game because of it.

Maybe the Rose Bowl should reconsider its alliance with the Big 10. After all, the game does take place in the liberal state of California, right? Why not make a contingency agreement with some of those third party conferences (I.e. the MWC or Western Athletic Conference)? Why should the Big 10 teams have to travel so far to play a game they know they are going to lose? Give a chance to the Utes or the Broncos to beat the Trojans in a national setting and where (pretty much) the Trojans have the home field advantage.

By the way, does anybody even remember the Orange Bowl? Was it that game that was decided by one point between TCU and Boise State?  Nope, sure wasn’t. Was it that 3-0 game between Pittsburgh and Oregon State? I don’t think so. How about that one that the Rebels creamed the Red Raiders? Wrong again.

Virginia Tech played Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl and neither team ranked in the top 14 of the final AP polls. Why? Because the two squads only got to play in a BCS game because of their pre-established tie-in with their so-called elite conference. Neither deserved to be in the game and any of the previously mentioned matchups would have proved to be much more interesting in such a big-status game.

So what did we learn this year in college football?

As the great JoePa put it, “is it the BCS or the BSC?”

Oh, since Tim Tebow recently announced that he will be returning to the Gators for the next season, I’ll give away my National Title prediction, right here, right now: Florida Gators to repeat.

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