Steve Nitz: So Jon, the college football season is upon us. Which brings us to the yearly argument of the BCS. What do you think of the system?

Jon Levanich: Well, to be frank, Steve, I can’t stand it. I think it is the worst idea since the pet rock.

SN: I agree that it has some flaws, but I actually kind of like the BCS. It makes the regular season mean a lot more, unlike college basketball.

JL: OK, but the regular season does mean something more. You won’t see a 10-21 basketball team usually make any noise in their conference tournament any ways. And speaking of conference tournaments, the BCS is horrible when it comes to those. Ignoring my Big Ten bias for a moment, those conferences that don’t have a championship game are automatically at a disadvantage. A playoff system benefits all conferences equally.

SN: Take Saturday’s game between No. 1 USC and No. 5 Ohio State. It’s practically a playoff game in September. You don’t get that in any other sport. If this was college basketball, the game wouldn’t mean nearly as much.

JL: Right, but that’s where the BCS gets it all wrong. Say by some miracle Ohio State wins that game. Although USC is the better team on paper, they are pretty much done competing for a national title if they lose that game. At least with a playoff they can have a chance at redemption.

SN: They aren’t necessarily done, but it hurts their chances. LSU lost two games last season while Ohio State lost one. There is a playoff in college football – it’s the regular season. It’s 12 games, double elimination. You have to come to play every single week.

JL: Yeah, but look at LSU. They did lose two games, but played at 13th game in the SEC Championship. Seems kind of unfair to me that they get an extra game to bolster their so-called BCS resume while teams from the Pac 10 and Big 10 don’t have that luxury.

SN: The BCS and the conference championship games are an entirely different argument, because they don’t really have a lot to do with one another. The Big 10 and Pac 10 could each add a 12th team and have a conference championship game if they wanted to, but they both choose not to do so. If anything, the conference championships hurt those schools more than they help them. LSU had a lot more to lose last year when they played Tennessee in the SEC Championship game. A win didn’t really help them a whole lot, but if they lost they wouldn’t have had a shot at the national title.

JL: Then why don’t you ask Notre Dame about the Big 10. The Big 10 threw out a welcome mat to them and Notre Dame turned their noses up on it. If you want to keep the conference championship games, fine. But you shouldn’t be able to include that game in the BCS formula if you want it to be fair. But it doesn’t matter, because I am predicting at least a four-team playoff system by the time the next BCS contract runs out, if not sooner when we have yet another split national champion.

SN: I still can’t stand the fact that Notre Dame thinks they are better than everybody else and stays as an independent. Obviously the main reason is money with their television contract with NBC. Plus, they don’t want to play teams like Wisconsin and Ohio State every year when they can play San Diego State and Navy as an independent.

JL: Yeah, and how well did that Navy match-up fair for them last year? Well, if you like the BCS so much, what would you change to make BCS haters like myself more happy if you don’t want to see a playoff system?

SN: I would add an extra game, not a full playoff. Basically, the No. 1 team would play the No. 4 team, while the No. 2 team plays the No. 3 team at the site of the higher seed. The winners play in the BCS Championship game. This lessens the controversy but still keeps the regular season just as meaningful.

JL: I can see some validity in that, but there’s still the matter of those bubble teams. And yes, I know there always will be, but don’t you think that an eight team playoff while getting rid of the conference championships makes it easier and more exciting for those ‘Cinderella’ teams? In my mind, this is the perfect system.

SN: That wouldn’t be a bad system, but to me the “plus one” format makes more sense. At least we can agree on one thing, the BCS will always give people something to argue about.

JL: Fair enough. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens when the current BCS contract runs out.