On Monday I posted my blogpoll draft ballot and, I guess, in it is contained my opinion on who should play for the national championship: the SEC champion and either Oklahoma or Texas. This is not controversial. My exact ordering of the teams, however, may be:

MGoBrian's got his draft ballot up and he decided on Oklahoma ahead of Texas, for the reasons we've discussed multiple times here already. Though he mistakenly replaces on Texas' schedule Kansas with Kansas State, I'm certain getting that right wouldn't make a lick of difference based on his ballot and published reasoning.

No, what makes Brian's ballot a frontrunner for the wack ballot watch this week is not OU at #1, but Texas at... #4?

You read that right. Brian offers the standard TCU-Cincinnati bit, decides to toss out head-to-heads and common opponents, and rolls with OU at #1. Fine. I dislike the analysis (and find it comically thin considering its publication immediately following a highly nuanced ND 2007 vs Michigan 2008 analysis), but have acknowledged repeatedly that the adopted line of argument clears the lowest bar: Not Irrational. Where Brian really falls off a cliff is in sandwiching Florida and Alabama between the Sooners and Longhorns.

That's Burnt Orange Nation, and they're a little cheesed off. Obviously.

My first thought: "who cares? It will all work itself out this weekend." I was a little taken aback by the stridency of the response to a ballot that's just a draft (and, yes, admittedly a little thin on the justifications), especially when it would be moot a week from now.

Then I remembered the reason Oklahoma was going to the Big 12 Championship game. No wonder Texas fans are a little punchy about polls.

My ballot was apparently the last straw for Peter's faith in the rationality of humanity. The title of the post: "The Day That Common Sense Died." At he throws his hands up in the air, defeated. Um… sorry about that?

Meanwhile, Matt Hinton, AKA Dr. Saturday, provides a dossier of the BCS complainers from years past:

Thus a meme is born, the kind that will live on forever in Longhorn and Red River lore; if Texas fails to slide into one of the top two spots next Tuesday, opinion is unanimous and vociferous enough around UT that 2008 will always be "The Year Texas Got Screwed," joining the illustrious company of Ohio State (1998), Miami (2000), Oregon (2001), USC (2003), Auburn (2004), Michigan (2006) and, if you ask them, Georgia (2007) on the wrong end of the BCS' annual stick. It could have just as easily -- and just as maddeningly -- been Oklahoma's turn this time around, given the Sooners' exceptional resumé and dominant stretch run, but their time will come. Everybody gets their turn at outrage.

Every one of those teams outside Georgia has a valid bitch, making it 6 times in 11 years the BCS has either totally failed (picking Nebraska over Oregon, leaving #1 USC out) or run across an intractable problem (three undefeated teams, six indistinguishable one-loss ones).

Every year there is some complaint and the BCS goes about fixing the problem that came before, then announcing a new Pax Idiotica in which there will be no problems forever. Wrong. As long as college football is settled on the world's dumbest playoff system, this will continue to happen.

So, I say this to Peter and Texas fans everywhere: I don't know. I don't know if you are a better team or had a better season than Oklahoma. I don't know if Florida or Alabama did. I don't know if USC or Penn State did. Since the devolution of college football scheduling has deprived us of more than a half dozen meaningful comparison points between one conference and another, I am guessing. Totally. And in this case attempting to pick between Texas and Oklahoma is impossible. I read Texas supporters' justifications and think they're totally reasonable.

This is only okay because the BlogPoll does not count. I wouldn't participate in a poll that contributed to the current BCS rankings, because the BCS is an abomination. It is the worst of all possible worlds.

You cannot oppose a playoff and be in favor of the BCS in any form: the BCS is a playoff. It is a two-team playoff in a field of 119 teams. Those teams play 12 or 13 games and have schedules so segregated it's impossible to distinguish between one-loss teams in difference conferences. It is the worst playoff that has ever been conceived. It sanctions the idea that there is a real national championship to pursue, then awards it in the worst way possible. I would prefer anything to it.

Anything:

• A return to the old bowl system and entirely mythical championships
• A four team playoff
• A six team playoff
• An eight team playoff
• Anything at all, anything, God, anything

My personal playoff plan has been expounded upon on this site already, but a recap:

Six teams. Six is a great number, big enough to include all reasonable contenders, small enough to fit, and lopsided enough to make finishing #1 or #2 really worth it, as they get byes.

Home games in the first two rounds. Reward better teams for their seasons. Value the regular season. Reward loyal fans. Avoid corporate whoredom.

The first round is the week after the conference championship games; the second round is January 1st. The final is the next Saturday at least a week out. First-round losers (and everyone else) are welcome to participate in whatever bowl games they feel like participating in.

No Autobids. Autobids are stupid. Ask the Orange Bowl.

Max two teams per conference.

Final at the Rose Bowl. Obviously. Kickoff at 4:30.

Assuming Florida and Oklahoma wins in the conference games, this year's bracket:

#1 Florida vs #4 Texas/#5 Penn State
#2 Oklahoma vs #3 USC/#6 Alabama

I've futzed the seeds to prevent second round intraconference matchups.

Is this perfect? No. It's hard to leave Utah out.* Does it crown a better champion? Yes. Does it maintain the drama of the regular season? Hell yes. The SEC championship game is the difference between a first round bye and a second round home game and a first round road game if you even make it. Is it 10000% better than what we've got now? Yes.

I'm not a big fan of the eight-team playoff proposal with autobids for all the BCS conferences. Frankly, no one in the Big East or ACC has any business playing for a national title this year, and in previous years that goes for the Pac-10 or Big 12 or Big Ten or SEC, too. But it would be so much better than what we've got now. I no longer care about the tradition of the bowl games. They've sold out for more money and more games and this whole fifth game was a transparent money grab that gives us a slew of awful matchups every January. It's impossible to love something with "Fedex" as part of its name. The bowls can die for all I care, with the exception of the Rose.

*(I've done these the past three years and this is an unusual situation. Most years Utah would get in.)