Disclaimer: I LOVE the Ohio State Buckeyes.

With that said….

E. Gordon Gee is an embarrassment to everyone who bleeds Scarlet and Gray.

Why do I choose to throw darts at the president of the university whose football team I so dearly love? Simple; his mindset and position of power contribute mightily to the reason why the Football Bowl Subdivision has no playoff system and no hope of providing an undisputed champion to its fans.

Gee was recently quoted by ESPN, saying that if Boise State or TCU happened to end their seasons undefeated they still shouldn’t be considered as national championship caliber teams.

His reasoning: Neither the Broncos nor the Horned Frogs play top-tier teams on a weekly basis. Despite the fact that each of these teams has dominated every opponent they’ve faced for several years, Gee claimed they aren’t tasked with weekly tests of endurance such as their peers in, say, the Big Ten or Southeastern Conference.

And he said all of this with as much smug arrogance as a man can muster while wearing suspenders and a bow tie. In another era, these statements might have made David decide he really had no chance against Goliath.

But the fear of David is what really shakes the Goliath’s in the monopoly called NCAA Football, at least in the division that declares its winner via the laughable Bowl Championship Series.

If Major League Baseball was run by computers, the Giants and Rangers couldn’t have dreamed of a World Series berth. They would have settled for the Outback Bowl.

Gee has a responsibility not only to his school, but to his conference. The Big Ten pools all money gained from bowl appearances and distributes it evenly among its eleven teams. If the Buckeyes earn 18 million for a Rose Bowl win, each team in the conference gets a 1/12 cut of that booty, since an even percentage of the cut goes to the Big Ten Conference.

All major conferences share wealth this way.

Simply put, this is a money game. Conferences that house the Boise States and TCUs of the world aren’t a part of the monopoly. That’s why the money men, like Gee, want them left out. The powers that be say, “We pick the championship game, you (idiots who clamor for a playoff) dumb down, buy your beer and watch the show.”

The major conferences, and presidents of their respective universities, oppose a playoff of the top ranked teams in the country because a team like Boise State or TCU shreds their monetary agreements and threatens their chokehold on the cookie jar.

“Imagine if we lost to one of them,” they think. And it’s a very real possibility, which is why good teams from non-BCS schools get snuffed out and forgotten when future schedules are made by the “elite” schools.

An outsider from the Mountain West or Western Athletic Conference was never supposed to contend under the BCS format. But now, with an Auburn or Oregon loss, one of those teams has a chance to step up David-like and hurl his stone at the greedy pigs who currently muffle our passion for a playoff.

Gee, like all unscrupulous BCS defenders, is waving a white flag wrought with fear by belittling the accomplishments of non-BCS recognized teams and conferences.

In layman’s terms he’s saying, “If the little guy wins, those of us with the monopoly will lose our cash cow.”

And he’s also going to say that a playoff is a distraction to the players’ studies and that he worries that the kids will be commercialized.

Take index finger and insert into throat.

It’s going to take a Boise State or TCU to splinter this BCS farce into pieces.

Go Broncos and Horned Frogs!

Side note: Hats off to Sports Illustrated for continually running stories pushing for a playoff. Here’s a link to one of the most recent ones: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1177192/index.htm