Mike Celizic

Another big game for an alleged championship, another letdown. And so, with a two-loss team celebrating as if they’ve actually won something, we’re left to ask again when the tradition slaves who run college football will finally do the right thing and give us a playoff.

Be honest. Unless you’re an LSU fan — and hats off to them for grinding Ohio State into the Superdome turf — there’s no way you think this college football season should be over. I don’t know which team you want to have a shot at LSU. It could be USC or Georgia or Missouri. But I know you want another game.

In a way, what happened on Monday night in New Orleans is the best thing that could happen to the absurd system that arbitrarily anoints a national champion in the NCAA’s flagship sport. After this stinker of a game, there can be no more specious arguments about how the system isn’t broken.

The truth is so self-evident that even the BCS is starting to get the idea. Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford, the new coordinator of the Bowl Championship Series, said on Monday, even before Ohio State was a no-show again in the season’s final game, that he’s going to investigate a so-called “plus-one” system, which is a fancy name for a four-team tournament.

It’s a half measure. If such a system were in place this year, we’d have had a four-team playoff with Ohio State, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma and LSU. The team everybody would like to see in a playoff, USC, would have been out in the cold, along with Georgia and Missouri.

But that modest proposal is already under fire even before it’s been investigated. The Big Ten and Pac-10 are against it. The reason, the commissioners of those hallowed conferences said, is because it might make the Rose Bowl less lucrative to them.

At least they’re honest — it’s about the money.

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That’s what’s keeping the game, the players and the fans away from a fair system — petty little tyrants protecting their precious turf — and income. They don’t even care that a playoff will pour tons more money into the system. If it’s not all for them — that is, if they have to share it with someone — they’re not going to be in favor of it.

The problem is college football is run by a committee, and nothing good ever came out of a system run that way. What the game needs is a commissioner — a football czar. Hire a strong executive who knows the game, give him the power to run the game, and stand back.

FINAL TOP 5 IN 2009 POLLS AP Rank Team Record Points 1 Alabama (60) 14-0 1,500 2 Texas 13-1 1,399 3 Florida 13-1 1,370 4 Boise State 14-0 1,366 5 Ohio State 11-2 1,224 Coaches' Rank Team Record Points 1 Alabama (58) 14-0 1,450 2 Texas 13-1 1,360 3 Florida 13-1 1,323 4 Boise State 14-0 1,312 5 Ohio State 11-2 1,190

Put a commissioner in place and you’ll have a playoff system, because it’s the only fair way to run things. It’ll also bring more money into the system. The six BCS conferences will scream and whimper, because they’ll have to share that money with the lesser conferences, but they’ll get over it the instant a new system gives them a shot at a title that they wouldn’t have had before.

The administrators talk about fair play, but they don’t even care enough to have a level playing field. The game can’t even agree on the idea of conference championships. Missouri blew their chance at the BCS title game because their conference has a championship game, and they lost it. Ohio State got into the championship game because the Big Ten doesn’t have a championship game. The Pac-10 doesn’t have one, either.

If I’m the commissioner of big-time college football, I tell conferences to either play a championship game or don’t bother applying for the playoffs. And I’d cut the regular season back a game so that I could have a legitimate playoff with a minimum of 10 teams. The rest get to play bowl games in December, the same as they do now.