When you’re as sick as I have been this week, a lot of crazy thoughts can pop into your head.

How come they don’t play old “He-Man” episodes on Cartoon Network?

Why doesn’t my roommate make life a whole lot easier and fix the chain on our toilet?

Who decides the proper number of treats you get at the bank drive-in?

The most productive work I got done this week was trying to figure out an alternative for the Bowl Championship Series.

That’s right, the good ol’ BCS.

For those off you who only leave your cave on Sundays, the BCS is a coalition of elite bowl games and conferences that was established to determine the national champion for college football.

The BCS Web site says it does all of this, while “maintaining and enhancing the bowl system which has provided significant support to college football for nearly a century.”

The BCS, which runs through the 2005 regular season and 2006 bowl season, consists of the Rose Bowl, Nokia Sugar Bowl, FedEx Orange Bowl and the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

I, for one, think the BCS is a big load of crap. Any system that has a decent Ohio State team ranked above juggernauts like Miami, Texas, Oklahoma and even Georgia is clearly not doing its job.

Miami hasn’t lost once in its last 31 games — not once! And you’re trying to tell me that Ohio State would get closer than 28 points if they played each other? Please.

This, however, is not the Buckeyes’ fault. Instead, blame the weak conference that they play in.

The Big 10 is like most of Skeletor’s henchmen: inept and worthless (Beast Man included).

When a team like the Iowa Hawkeyes is contending for a conference championship, you know things are bad. Iowa’s biggest wins came against mediocre Penn State and an overrated Michigan team.

Think about it: Other than Zack Mills and John Navarre, can you think of anyone else on those two teams?

I didn’t think so.

The Big 10 has gone 2-4 in bowl games each of the last two years and consistently get embarrassed when they play outside the conference.

But enough about how bad the Big 10 is.

What I am really getting at is a viable solution to having computers decide who is the best team.

A playoff.

Now before you tell me about how much money will be lost and how much longer the season is going to be, hear me out.

My proposal is an eight-team tournament that decides a true national champion. To fill out the brackets, champions from the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and the Southeastern conferences will be thrown in with two at-large teams to achieve the total of eight. This makes for a total of seven games instead of four, and will be spread out over a three-week time frame.

For example, the first bowl game this year is on Dec. 17.

You could play two first-round games on the 17th, and two on the 18th. Then, you could play one game on the 26th, and one more on the 27th, leaving you with one week for the two remaining teams to get ready for a national title game.

If teams are worried about playing too many games, fine.

Just don’t schedule two or three cupcakes at the beginning of every year like usual.

Seriously, with spring practice, fall practice and a scrimmage game, teams should be able to get by with just one or two non-conference games.

You can also still keep the bowls in place by taking the seven most prominent bowls and naming one for each tournament game. Rotating every year for the championship game is an easy way to defuse any arguments as well.

Now obviously this is not a fool-proof plan, but at least it provides an alternative to Joe Fan sitting on the couch with his hand stuck in a peanut jar yelling things like “the BCS sucks” and “Bowling Green should be in it. They only have one loss.”

What will be lost this year is the chance to see the best teams in college football play each other. I don’t care if Ohio State is undefeated. If they were in the Big 12 this year, they would be lucky to be the fifth-best team in the conference.

Do you really think Craig Krenzel could beat Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado and Kansas State?

He could barely beat a Purdue team that got lucky in a win over Western Michigan.

For me, the highlight of this years Fiesta Bowl will be listening to analyst Keith Jackson call the game.

Hearing the phrase “Whoa Nellie” will be more entertaining than a 55-20 Miami win.

I don’t need the BCS to tell me that.

Zac Reicks

is a senior in journalism

and mass communication from Lawler. He is the assignment sports editor

at the Daily.