We all lose if losers don’t get together

Here we go. The annual futility dance.

College football needs a playoff.

The players want it. Coaches want it. The country wants it. College presidents would want it, but they’re waiting for someone to tell them they should because they’re distracted by More Important Things – like, oh, paying a Russian history prof a quarter of a million dollars to teach in the Tri-Cities. But the only people who can nudge the presidents are the commissioners of the six BCS conferences, and the ring of cash registers keeps them from hearing the national clamor even with all sorts of new money to be made.

Every autumn there is deafening debate about the need – the absolute, no-questions, more-vital-than-oxygen need – to decide who’s No. 1.

Except we already do, if in imperfect fashion.

What we really need is to settle on who’s No. 119 – and this year more than ever.

You know where I’m going: Never mind who’s first.

Who’s worst?

It’s no longer something that can be left to the Bottom Ten guy or statistical comparisons, nor can we trust the schedule to provide us with an obvious game for none of the marbles – although that seemed to be a lock this year, and something of our very own to boot.

But then Washington State actually scored a few touchdowns last weekend against Arizona, and Washington had Arizona State tied up in knots in the third quarter – and there was the first hint that the Cougars and Huskies could screw up the upcoming match made in hell, the Roadapple Cup.

And this week they can.

The Cougars are only 37-point underdogs at Arizona State, which will be fat and overconfident after beating UW. And the Huskies entertain a visit from their old pal Rick Neuheisel, who pilots a team so offensively inept that it would be the Pac-10’s embarrassment in any normal year.

What if one the Washingtons wins?

If we’ve had to endure football this bad all season, surely we deserve not to have next week’s Shame of the Century sullied by any actual success.

This is why we need a playoff – or playoaf, if you will.

Now, yes, in all likelihood the Cougs and Dawgs will stumble through the weekend losers one more time and all will be ill for the big throwdown in Pullman. But we got lucky. Down south of the Red River, North Texas had been matching our heroes defeat for ignominious defeat all season until two weeks ago, when the Serene Green managed to end the nation’s longest losing streak with a 51-40 defeat of Western Kentucky. UNT was even on the verge of surrendering the game-losing touchdown on the last play when the Helltoppers – er, Hilltoppers – managed to turn the ball over for a seventh time, an interception that was returned 97 yards for a North Texas touchdown.

In this company, that almost qualifies as running up the score.

It’s also a victory over an FBS team, something neither the Cougs nor Dawgs have. Nor does Western Kentucky, for that matter, but the Toppers’ creampuff scheduling has eliminated them from consideration from this poor man’s – OK, this destitute man’s – BCS.

And that’s the problem: The means of arriving at college football’s worst team is as arbitrary as naming its best. A winless North Texas would be down in arms over being left out of the national chumpionship picture that Washington and Washington State presume to have all to themselves. After all, the Serene Green has allowed almost as many points as Wazzu – 486 to 502 – this season.

Likewise, SMU hasn’t beaten an FBS team in nine tries, and San Diego State owns only a win over Idaho, but also lost to lower-division Cal Poly. And obviously the Vandals deserve to be in the conversion – it’s one of the perks of not being in the Big Sky Conference anymore, right?

So why not a little eight-team bracket with the worst of the five non-BCS conferences, an independent – Notre Dame will do – and two at-large teams from the leagues that play Real Football? Single win-limination. Losers advance.

Naturally, there are humbugs out there with the same old arguments.

The bowl system has been good for college football. So good that this year we have 34 bowl games – the new Congressional Bowl pits Navy against the ninth-place team from the ACC. That means 68 teams get bids, or well more than half the 119 FBS schools. If it wasn’t for the 0-12 and 1-11 teams, there wouldn’t be enough bowl eligibles.

No one will watch. We’re talking about a series of train wrecks. Everyone will watch – and root against their favorites to beat the spread.

Sponsors will run away. If NBC can’t see a bonanza to a promotional tie-in with “The Biggest Loser,” the network should be forced to take all those pre-New Year’s bowl games off ESPN’s hands.

It’ll take away the drama of the regular season. Are you kidding? What would make next week’s Roadapple Cup more dramatic than having a spot in “The Biggest Loser” on the line?

Presidents will be worried about more missed class time. No problem. Because, really, don’t you want these players to flunk out?