Get ready! It looks like there are 34 bowl games starting on December 20 and ending on January 8, 2009, so that means 68 college teams were invited to go bowling this year. Several 6-6 teams are going to bowl games.

There are five bowl games each on December 31 and January 1. Whoa. Overdose.

In the 10 team Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system, the team ranked number one (Oklahoma) and the team ranked number two (Florida) play each other. That is good. Number three (Texas) does not play number four (Alabama) and so on. That is not good. One would think we could at least see the format of one versus two, three versus four, etc. That’s not to say there won’t be great games, but it would be nice to see the top ten teams play each other. They don’t do this because the football conferences have sweet deals with certain bowl committees.

I know I have said this before, but wouldn’t it be great to see the top eight or 16 teams in the BCS standings play each other in a playoff like they do in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and the NAIA? If there were 16 teams, the two teams that meet in the final game would have played an extra four games ending the same week as the BCS National Championship game. If there were eight teams, the final two teams would play an extra three games.

We have the BCS system because of money it generates for the schools that make it into the BCS. There’s a $17 million payout per game for participating in one of the five BCS games. Just imagine if that much money was paid for every round of a playoff for the top eight or 16 teams who make the big show? I would imagine there would be many teams lining up for a playoff system because money talks.