Welcome, boys and girls, to beginner BCS. If you’d all be so kind as to remove the bottles of paste from your mouths, we’ll begin.

Good morning, I am your substitute instructor Mr. Corder &045; no, not like the guy on TV with the bad afro.

This, of course, is a new requirement in your curriculum. Your parents &045; who are we kidding? Your fathers thought if they pushed for this course in their children’s classrooms, you could explain how this firestorm gets started.

Plus, they thought you’d have something to offer other than annoying them with information about Pokemon at the dinner table.

Moving on. The BCS, Bowl Championship Series, was formed before the 1998 season among the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange bowls, a handful of premium conferences &045; Southeastern, Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big 12, Big 10 and Pacific-10 &045; and Notre Dame.

Its purpose was to determine an outright national champion; however, it has miserably failed in the mission statement a couple of times now.

Sunday’s shakeout, which left the No. 1 team in the nation Southern California in its home state to play Michigan in the Rose Bowl and kept the Trojans out of the national championship game, is the most recent.

Instead it will be LSU and Oklahoma, a respective No. 2 and No. 1 in the final BCS standings, for the right to play in New Orleans and the Sugar Bowl Jan. 4, in a game that is sure to finish well past your bedtimes.

Here’s the funny thing: Oklahoma, for the past four months, was the best thing since construction paper and a flask of Elmer’s. The darling Sooners were untouchable, like when you go with your parents into stores, displaying that invincibility by blowing out conference opponents’ Texas 65-13 and Texas A&M 77-0.

Then, the unthinkable happened. OU lost, boys and girls, and not just barely, either. The Sooners got bullied around by Kansas State just like your older siblings do to you.

It threw the BCS into chaos. Instead of an LSU-USC matchup in the Superdome, the chips and bytes and calculations that make up the BCS spit out LSU-Oklahoma.

Now the BCS’ sole reason for being is muddled. Through a contract coaches signed with the BCS, they are obligated to vote the national title game winner No. 1 at the end of the season.

While it’d be hard to argue against LSU as the consensus No. 1 if it pulled off the upset of Oklahoma, as the Tigers are currently 6-point dogs &045; &uot;Spreads, Overs and Unders: How to Win Daddy a New Pair of Shoes&uot; is next semester’s follow-up class &045; some coaches are bound and determined to vote USC No. 1 if the Trojans get by Michigan Jan. 1.

What all this nonsense has taught us is that college football needs a playoff system.

Any questions, class? Class? Oh, you’ve all gone cross-eyed. Who can blame you? Anyone got an extra bottle of paste? Preferably something in a merlot.

Chuck Corder

is a sports writer for The Natchez Democrat. You can reach him at (601) 445-3633 or by e-mail at

chuck.corder@natchezdemocrat.com.