"Ooh, honey, you should have been here 10 minutes ago,” said the clerk at the Atlanta hotel where I spent last Saturday night, courtesy of overbooked Delta Airlines. “We had us a knockdown drag-out.”

She wasn’t kidding either. A throng of similarly waylaid travelers, anticipating a scene at Hartsfield International that would make the evacuation of Saigon look orderly by comparison, began clamoring for the nine seats in the hotel’s airport shuttle as soon as it pulled up. The clamoring led to serious jostling, which degenerated into oaths and shouting, which quickly led to shoving, which prompted the formidable woman behind the desk to rush outside and threaten to “get Western” with everyone who refused to settle down.

For perverse reasons of my own, this is the scenario I’m wishing upon the Bowl Championship System. I’m hoping that underdog Virginia Tech overcomes top-ranked Miami this weekend, and then that the winner of the Tennessee-Florida showdown loses to Auburn or LSU in the SEC Championship game. Then we’d have a real-live, hoo-daddy mess in college football, which is exactly what college football needs.

If things turn out the way I’d like, the BCS will be in the slop, with a bunch of contenders and no legitimate defenders. Everybody will be trying to jump on the bus at once. Rivets will begin popping off the overloaded BCS mainframe as it tries to identify the two entries for the Mythical National Championship Game. It will be beautiful chaos.

Of course, things are pretty chaotic as it is. Even if Miami wins this weekend, its opponent for the big game in the Rose Bowl will have at least one loss. The jostling has already begun, and the dog-cussing will start in a couple of weeks.

Consider the entries in the field, how they spin to make their case.

The soulless, data-crunching Uniblab that runs the BCS currently reckons Florida and Tennessee as the second- and sixth-best teams, respectively. By what logic, then, does Florida automatically plummet three or four spots if it loses, while Tennessee vaults to second or third if it wins?

If the winner between the Vols and Gators stumbles against Auburn or LSU in the SEC title game (Florida, you’ll recall, has already lost to Auburn), then the league’s best two teams would both finish with two losses. Why, the SEC East champ could fairly wonder, should it be penalized by the BCS for playing an extra game against a highly motivated underdog?

Texas might ask the same question. The Longhorns, currently rated third by the computer, must play Colorado in the Big 12 championship game. They whomped the Buffaloes 41-7 earlier this season. But if they lose now, in their conference’s extra game, they’re out.

The Big 12 title will be settled on the field, but that won’t stop the arguments about which team most deserves a Rose Bowl slot, since three of them had just one loss and were ranked among the top 10 entering this weekend.

After a first-game upset by Fresno, Colorado’s only loss came to Texas. Texas’ only loss came to Oklahoma. Before flubbing last Saturday against Oklahoma State, OU had lost only to Nebraska. Nebraska’s only loss—though it was spectacular—came at Colorado.

Should Colorado (which could have crushed any team not equipped with nuclear weapons last Friday) beat Texas for the crown, the Big 12 team most deserving of a top bowl spot will, of course, be Nebraska. According to the BCS’ computer formula (which no one not in need of a life can explain to you), the Cornhuskers rate as the nation’s fourth-best team. The Buffaloes, who rolled up 62 points on these Huskers, rate eighth.

Should 10-1 Texas and 10-1 Florida both win out, the preferred team, obviously, will be the Gators, whom the computer rates higher.

There’s Oregon. The Ducks could finish 10-1 by beating hated rival Oregon State this Saturday. There’s ACC champion Maryland, whose only loss came at Florida State. And then there’s Big Ten champion Illinois, whose only loss came against Michigan.

But we left out this bunch for good reason. They don’t rate high enough by the computer’s formulation to be considered.

Oh, we almost forgot BYU. Assuming they win their final two games, at Mississippi State and Hawaii, the Cougars will finish the season undefeated. But they’ll lose with the BCS, because the computer says the Cougars play in a weak conference.

Stanford and Washington State can only be insolent bystanders at the BCS fracas, even though the Cardinals lost only to Washington and Washington State, and though Washington State lost only to Washington and Oregon.

Aren’t you glad the BCS has a computer to sort all of this out for us?

By the logic of this whacked system, we could eliminate the present carping with computer simulations of all the possible matchups of all the remaining contenders. We could crunch numbers instead of running backs. Run programs instead of plays. Then we’d declare the winner on New Year’s Day. Sure, you’d lose the pageantry (and revenues) the big BCS bowls provide, but you’d at least have a fairer result.

Alternatively (and here’s a radical noggin-thunker of a concept) we could let the contending parties settle things themselves. It’s time to renew the annual call for a playoff system: “Delenda est BCS!”

The BCS, as Cato the Elder would have put it, must be destroyed in the interest of fairness. And for you dwindling number of mossbacks—largely drawn from the demographic tribe of WMABOS (White, Middle-Aged Bowl Organizers and Sponsors)—who defend the Old Order, let me explain one more time how a playoff could work without upsetting things or filching money from your pockets.

First, take 16 teams. Pick the top 10 from the polls, then use a selection committee—the way the NCAA basketball tournament does—to determine the remaining six. This year, such a formula would include every major team with two or fewer losses and still leave room for a couple of small-conference underdogs like 10-1 Marshall or 10-2 Fresno State and Louisville.

Use your precious computer to establish seedings. Start the tournament on the second Saturday in December, and the championship game will still fall just after New Year’s. (And please don’t trot out the pitiful argument that forcing athletes to play more games will compromise academics; the bowl participants are already on campus practicing throughout December.)

Speaking of bowls, keep using the ones we have. Fifteen will be needed for the playoffs. As always, save the biggest (Rose, Orange, Sugar, Fiesta) for last, and rotate, as we do now, which among them will host the ultimate game. Enough bowls remain to accommodate the 8-3 and 7-4 teams that don’t reach the playoffs.

Under this arrangement, the big bowl games would loom even larger, while some of the lesser galas that struggle to sell tickets (or prostitute themselves by choosing mediocre, big-conference teams with big followings) will prosper. Ask yourself who you’d rather see in the Music City Bowl: Ole Miss (7-4) versus Purdue (7-4), or Florida against Oklahoma in an early-round playoff game.

Most of all, a playoff format involves the rough, Darwinian justice that appeals to us—not some statist, data-driven abomination. So I say it’s time that college football became true to itself and to the American way. Pull up the bus, open the doors and let the pushing, biting and eye-gouging commence!

How it looks from the La-Z-Boy

Titans 17, Browns 14

Florida 31, Tennessee 20

Ole Miss 35, Vanderbilt 14

LSU 27, Auburn 23

Georgia 38, Houston 13

BYU 37, Mississippi State 26

Indiana 42, Kentucky 28

Alabama 19, Southern Miss 14