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It was interesting to see the front page of the Dec. 24 edition of Sports Illustrated. The cover picture displayed a joyous group of college football players celebrating in Savannah, Tenn.

It was at the conclusion of the NAIA championship game won by Carroll College from Helena, Mont., 17-9 over Sioux Falls College from South Dakota. I found it interesting for a couple of reasons.

First was because that football game on Dec. 15 involved a dozen or so Wyoming natives playing for both teams, and secondly, because in the NAIA, the national championship is determined on the field of play, even though, in this case, the field was a muddy mess.

As a result, Carroll College dethroned Sioux Falls as national champions in NAIA ranks, and it came at the end of a playoff procedure that actually produces a worthy winner.

That playoff procedure is pretty much the same in all the other divisions of collegiate football -- in NCAA Division 1AA, 2 and 3. Everywhere except in Division 1A, the major college football division.

You probably are tired of my complaining about the bogus procedure used to name a national champion of major college football, but I can’t begin to accept a system that uses polls and computer rankings to pick Ohio State and LSU to meet for the title.

The Buckeyes and the Tigers didn’t have to earn a championship berth by going through a playoff format. The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system merely fed the poll results into their computers and came up with this match-up without any real justification.

The college football bowl season is usually a favorite time of the sports year when deserving teams get together in some rather exotic places to finish the season. The bowls are a reward to deserving teams, or at least that should be the case.

This year, however, it seems that several of the bowl games are meaningless. How about the Motor City Bowl in Detroit, where Purdue outscored Central Michigan by three in a shootout? An exciting game, but these same two teams had played one already during the regular season, and Purdue won that game too.

So why do a repeat in a bowl game? Well, they had to choose someone to play, didn’t they?

Or take the Las Vegas Bowl where BYU edged UCLA by a single point. These two teams also had played earlier in the regular season, so this was hardly a match-up made in heaven. BYU deserved the bowl game by virtue of winning the Mountain West Conference title, but UCLA didn’t achieve much of anything this season except an early-season triumph over BYU.

And the Las Vegas sponsors appear to be getting tired of inviting second-tier PacTen teams to their bowl game when the PacTen teams are not really excited about playing in such a pedestrian postseason game. That was the case last year when BYU whipped an Oregon team that didn’t really want to be there.

And earlier when Wyoming beat UCLA in Las Vegas, the Bruins weren’t thrilled about having to play an opponent like the Cowboys in a minor bowl game.

The PacTen seems to feel it deserves better than a trip to Las Vegas. Thank goodness, teams like BYU and Wyoming bring along enough fan support to make the venture viable for the bowl sponsors.

This year, there were 32 bowl games and many were completely forgettable. Can you tell me who won the New Orleans Bowl or the Papajohns.com Bowl? And, more importantly, who cares?

Now the so-called BCS national championship game to be played next week in New Orleans should rival the NFL’s Super Bowl in expectation and excitement, but LSU and Ohio State just don’t engender that intense competitive feeling.

Both teams have been beaten during the regular season, and there are good arguments against both the Buckeyes and Tigers deserving to be in a title game. Would either team have advanced this far should they have had to go through a playoff format?

That is debatable, but we will never know because the BCS will determine which teams play in its title game regardless of what would make more sense. You will recall that Ohio State played for the BCS crown last season and was humiliated by Florida in the title game.

This time, we might be treated to a wonderful title showdown, but we will never have a true major college football champion until a playoff is implemented. I’m not convinced that will happen in the near future, but it is heartening to note that even Sports Illustrated offered a playoff scenario that could salvage a most unpredictable season.

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