Should college football stick to the idea of having a national champion? YEA: Here’s hoping for more forward progress on the issue

Not even the worst creations of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs could have a reputation as ruined as the computers tasked with determining the best teams in the Bowl Championship Series. With the media trumpeting the latest iGoofed mistake ? a computer error that flip-flopped two teams in the standings ? it is understandable that some might call for college football to abandon the idea of a national champion altogether.Yet while we may sympathize with the TCUs and the Boise States and all the other spurned suitors of gridiron glory, we must ultimately conclude that college football is better off with a national champion than without one.The history of the game practically cries out for the continuation of the coronation each year. Ninety years ago, the mighty Ducks of Oregon faced the Crimson of Harvard in the Rose Bowl for the national championship. (Harvard won, 7-6. It was ninety years ago, remember.) Even before commercial airlines made cross-country travel easier, college football teams were still willing to make 4,000-mile journeys to find out who was top dog. Today, with the process of getting from one end of the country to another so much more convenient – even with the TSA body scans – the competitive zeal in student-athletes would be extinguished if someone called off the BCS extravaganza.We should also consider it feasible to crown a champion in football because every other collegiate sport seems to be able to do it. Soccer, hockey, baseball ? the process may be difficult, but they seem to find a way. The minds of March Madness even want to invite more guests to the party; the last I heard, they wanted to expand the round of 64 to the round of 64,000. Of course, the physical demands of football exceed those of most other sports, but The New York Times and Sports Illustrated have made logical arguments for a BCS playoff system that would transcend such difficulties.There are those who contend that the methods of selecting a collegiate champion in football are fundamentally flawed. Yet the BCS actually represents forward progress. It is hard to find much logic at all in how the Rose Bowl chose its participants. “Initially, the Tournament of Roses Association invited teams to compete on the gridiron,” the association reported on its Web site. “In 1924, the Tournament invited only the Western team who then in turn selected its Eastern opponent. Then in 1935, the Pacific Coast Conference began choosing one of its own teams to compete on New Year’s Day and continued to select opposition.” Such reasoning makes “strength of schedule” sound wise by comparison.The corruption of scandals involving college stars such as Cam Newton, and the lucre of a big bowl berth, might also make some folks leery of the BCS process. Yet strip away the pursuit of a championship, and college football might become more corrupt if it retains all of its greed and none of its glory.Much has changed since that Harvard-Oregon set-to back in 1920 ? and yet some fundamentals remain. Oregon is once again in the hunt for a national championship ? and the glory of winning is too alluring to erase just because of a few computer glitches.Rich Tenorio is The Item’s sports copy editor.