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WAILUKU >> If it's broke, best fix it. At least that's how American Football Coaches Association executive director Grant Teaff sees it.
On Maui for this week's Hula Bowl, the former Baylor University head coach conceded Monday that the BCS formula didn't quite compute this year. In a month or so, he will visit with members of the BCS to devise a system where more weight is given to the human polls (Associated Press and coaches) and less to the computers.
"The fly in the ointment, obviously, this year the system somehow precluded an outstanding football team that should have been in the national championship game from being in the game. That was Southern Cal," Teaff said. "They were No. 1 in both the AP and the coaches poll.
"Well our mode of operation was that we're not going to change horses in the middle of the stream. This is a good system. It's much better than the other (mythical championship). We will try to get it fixed. That was the position of our coaches.
"Our coaches unanimously again voted to stay with this system, to stay with this concept and then to negotiate with the BCS. One is we give more weight to the human polls, less weight to the computers. And we think by doing that we can create a game where we can have hopefully one and two."
Even so, two's company, three's a crowd. If there is an odd team out, as there was this year, you'll still have people wondering who is the true No 1. Teaff knows this, but hopefully a revised BCS formula will clear up the potential mess.
"There's no way under the old system that you can handle that," Teaff said. "You either got one national champion, a split national champion, which is what we have this year, but with one team left out because all three of those teams would be in separate bowls. They would not have been in the same bowl.
"So now, as ugly as it might have been, it turned out the best it could be. Southern Cal, who rightly deserved a national championship, and the winner of the OU-LSU game getting a national championship. So great."
OHIO STATE COACH Jim Tressel, who won a national championship last year with a dramatic victory over Miami, took a similar view.
"I don't think it's a bad thing because we ended up with two great teams there with LSU and USC," said Tressel, who is coaching in the Hula Bowl for the first time. "It didn't work out such that you could eliminate all the way down to one team.
"We were lucky the year before that it ended up with just the two of us (Ohio State and Miami) undefeated. So it was kind of an undisputed national championship, if you will. LSU and USC are awfully good. And both of them are excited in their communities. Both of them will be showing off their rings, so I don't think that's a bad thing. Our bowl system is so good, so important. The BCS system will be worked on, they'll tweak it a little bit to make it even better."
Coming up through the Division I-AA ranks, Tressel knows all about a playoff system. He coached at Youngstown State for 15 years, winning four national championships. Asked if a playoff system would ever be devised at Division I, he thought it was possible, but there were a lot of people involved in that process.
"I think things will evolve, how quickly I don't know," Tressel said. "We have a lot of different people involved in those decisions. Our coaches association does a good job of talking about it, having a voice. The athletic directors have a different set of problems. They talk about it. They have a voice.
"But the ultimate voice is our presidents, the people who lead the institutions. You put all the heads together and I'm sure there will be an evolution. We may have one sometime. I don't know if it will be in the near future. What we've got going on, they're not going to get rid of that and start over and simply have a playoff system."
HULA BOWL COUNTERPART Ralph Friedgen said he was all for a playoff until he heard Tressel's point of view at the recently completed AFCA meetings. The Maryland coach was surprised more coaches weren't in favor of a playoff system similar to the one used in Division I-AA.
"I think it's probably the best system we have right now," Friedgen said. "I've always been a guy who wanted a playoff. But we had a vote in the coaches meetings of who wanted a playoff and I think there were four of us.
"Coach Tressel got up and spoke and he wasn't for a playoff in college. He said at Youngstown that he didn't have a lot of guys who were going to be No. 1 draft picks (in the NFL). The more you subject them to injuries, the worse it is. Bobby Bowden was against it, so these are people who have been there.
"Some have been successful, some haven't in the final game. And yet they were all pretty vehement on the fact that they didn't want a playoff. I haven't been there, so I'm just going to sit back and say, hey they have been there. If that's how they feel, I'll respect it."
That doesn't mean the current system is a perfect one. Far from it based on what happened this year. But Teaff believes the problems are repairable.
"It will be about a month before I have an opportunity to meet with the BCS," Teaff said. "They have already indicated that they are most anxious to hear what the coaches have to say, and rightly so. I think when all the dust settles, as much gnashing of teeth that was going on it still came out pretty good. And the beautiful thing is I think it's going to give us a vehicle by which to get a better system.
"Will there be a perfect system? Nope, there will not. You can't draw me up one that somebody's not going to be unhappy about. For instance, say we had four teams with just one loss this year, which could have happened just like that. What if you have four teams that are undefeated?
"If you're going to use the coaches poll and the AP poll, then you've got to give them more weight. Otherwise, don't use them. Go ahead and use all your computers and go about your business. It's just simple. Our coaches voted unanimously against a one-game playoff. That even surprised me. To a man they said, 'Look, physically, you can't do that.' Do you think Southern Cal or LSU wants to go and play it off? They're both happy. They got the big rings and everything is great."