Playoff necessary for college football

Rumored for weeks and reportedly confirmed Thursday night, the imminent marriage between Brian Kelly and Notre Dame makes a lot of sense.

The Fighting Irish are getting an experienced, quality football coach. Kelly made all the right moves at Cincinnati. In three or four years, Kelly, a proven program builder, should be winning big at Notre Dame.

With a lot of luck, he could have the Irish playing in a Bowl Championship Series game that is part of a new college football playoff system.

Kelly appears to be a near-perfect hire for Notre Dame. But with the bowl season upon us, we're constantly reminded how a great game is reduced to an imperfect, nonsensical mess.

Cincinnati is one of five undefeated teams, but only two -- Alabama and Texas -- are allowed to play for the hoax that is the BCS national championship.

"This is a very flawed system," Wynn Las Vegas sports book director John Avello said. "Until we get where we have four teams in a playoff, with eight being the ultimate goal, this is going to happen every year.

"I don't know when it's going to happen. We may be five years away. We may be 10 years away. But it's going to happen. There's just too much of a push for it."

Some people are pushing for a 16-team playoff. I've always believed eight is the right number, because it would be a simpler format to get approved and would include enough deserving teams.

Implement seven existing bowls (Cotton, Outback, Fiesta, Orange, Sugar, Rose and the BCS Championship) into the playoff, and the other 27 bowls would be no more meaningless than they are now.

The eight-team field this postseason would include Alabama, Texas, Cincinnati, Texas Christian, Boise State, Florida, Oregon and Ohio State. The interest and revenue created by that type of playoff would be phenomenal, and we would have a true No. 1 team at the end.

The BCS system is a corrupt scam. It's only slightly better than Avello's sarcastic proposal of setting up an 800 number. "We could go to the 'Dancing with the Stars' format where we call in the votes," he said.

But enough of the complaining. The bowl season still is entertaining, and several of the 34 games are worth betting. In Las Vegas, none of these games is meaningless.

Starting at the top, Las Vegas Sports Consultants oddsmaker Ken White prefers the Longhorns as 5-point underdogs to the Crimson Tide in the BCS title game on Jan. 7 in Pasadena, Calif.

"I love Texas. I made Texas the favorite," White said. "I think the Southeastern Conference is a little overrated."

In a battle of unbeaten midmajors, Mountain West Conference champ TCU is a 7-point favorite over Boise State. It will be interesting to see how Broncos quarterback Kellen Moore deals with the ferocious Horned Frogs defense.

"I made it TCU minus-4," White said. "I thought anything over a touchdown is a pretty good take with Boise State."

White's other bowl opinions: Connecticut (+41/2) over South Carolina in the Papa John's, Northwestern (+8) over Auburn in the Outback, Houston (-5) over Air Force in the Armed Forces, Arizona (-11/2) over Nebraska in the Holiday, Miami (-3) over Wisconsin in the Champs Sports, Texas A&M (+7) over Georgia in the Independence, Boston College (+9) over Southern California in the Emerald and Southern Mississippi (-31/2) over Middle Tennessee in the New Orleans Bowl.

That was just a two-minute drill to use as a guide for your office pool. Plenty of time remains for more in-depth bowl analysis.

One game sure to be debated is the Sugar Bowl, in which Florida is a 10-point favorite over Cincinnati. How will Kelly's departure impact the Bearcats?

"It's hard to predict that," White said. "But I think Cincinnati has something to prove and will play great in the bowl game."

Even without Kelly, White likes the Bearcats as underdogs.

I'm making Kelly a favorite to be a long-term success at Notre Dame.

Contact sports betting columnist Matt Youmans at myoumans@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2907.