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The postseason format for college football appears to be ready to fail us once again.

With a little more than a month left of the regular season, there are five undefeated teams and a high possibility that one or more may be left of the national championship game.

Last season, three teams—Boise State, TCU and Cinncinati —finished the regular season with an unblemished mark, yet failed to make it to the national title game.

Same story, different year.

Overall, the solution should be the installation of some sort of playoff system.

However, the problem won’t be solved come Jan. 10, 2011 when this season’s Bowl Championship Series (BCS) national title game will be played.

So, college football fans will be left frustrated and without a resolution to what team is the best.

The saving grace for the BCS system is the fact there will be one less undefeated team after No. 3 TCU travels to Salt Lake City to take on No. 5 Utah on Saturday.

This may not make a difference though, because in a few weeks No. 1 Auburn, No. 2 Oregon and No. 4 Boise State may finish with undefeated records, creating yet another nightmare situation.

Each team has one game left against a ranked opponent with Auburn possibly having two, depending if they make it to the SEC Championship game.

If Auburn goes undefeated, 13-0, then they are in automatically.

The tragedy is that if Auburn loses, while Oregon, Boise and TCU/Utah remain undefeated, then who gets to play in the national title game?

The answer is unpredictable. Why? Because the system is based on an unpredictable calculation that now has teams leapfrogging one another for no apparent reason.

Luckily for college football fans, this year’s Heisman Trophy race is as blatant as ever.

Auburn’s quarterback Cameron Newton is the leader of the pack right now, but not too far behind is Oregon’s speedster running back LaMichael James and Boise State’s efficient passer Kellen Moore.

If any of these three names are not in New York City come Dec. 11, then it will be the most blasphemous mistake college football has rendered in this century.

Unless one of the candidates gets hurt or completely tanks in November, which is highly unlikely looking at their body of work thus far, then fans can salvage the fact that the Heisman nominees won’t be controversial.

However, the obviousness of the Heisman race has no correlation to abating the national championship crisis.

 

Steve Coulter is Clarion sports editor.