We need a college playoff

As we approach the 11th week of the college football season, the pool of unbeaten teams has been whittled down to four: Oregon, Auburn, TCU and Boise State.

This year is the best argument for why there should be a college football playoff implemented ASAP.

The topic has been argued by both parties to no end. It's constantly mentioned by SportsCenter, Around the Horn, Pardon the Interruption and Mike and Mike. So instead of talking about the NCAA's fascination with dollar bills, let's look at how the rest of the season will play out.

No. 1 Oregon has been untouchable en route to a 9-0 record. The Ducks have 58 offensive touchdowns and have allowed just 18, and are outgaining opponents 570 yards to 330 yards per game. Oregon has three games remaining, but just one against a ranked opponent: a home game against No. 13 Arizona. The Ducks beat up on No. 9 Stanford, 52-31 earlier in the season, and Stanford beat Arizona by 25 on Saturday. It's safe to say the Ducks will end up 12-0.

At No. 2 in the BCS rankings, Auburn is the team with the diciest remaining schedule. The Tigers are 10-0 and have just two regular season games remaining on its schedule: a home game against Georgia (5-5) and a road game at No. 11 Alabama, once considered the frontrunner for this year's championship. Auburn has to win that game, for which it might be an underdog, and then win the SEC Championship Game. That means beating either No. 24 Florida or No. 22 South Carolina. Not as difficult as beating Alabama, but not a cakewalk, either.

No. 3 TCU and No. 4 Boise State have beaten everything put in front of them. Last year, the two were matched against each other in the Fiesta Bowl. A 13-0 Boise State team beat a 12-0 TCU team 17-10, an exciting matchup, but disappointing to see neither given the opportunity to beat a BCS conference team and show America that they could hang with the big boys.

It was a lose-lose situation for both teams in the 2009 Fiesta Bowl. The winner should have won, after all, it wasn't even playing a BCS conference team. And the loser? How could it have been a championship-caliber team if it couldn't even beat a non-automatic qualifier?

Boise State hears the same argument every year: a poor strength of schedule makes it impossible to leapfrog bigger teams that play in better conferences. But the Broncos beat No. 10 Virginia Tech in Washington D.C. and beat No. 24 Oregon State in Week 3, and have run the table in its Western Athletic Conference schedule so far. But a poor in-conference strength of schedule puts the Broncos firmly behind TCU.

TCU has the best argument for getting in over Auburn. The Horned Frogs are 10-0 with a far more impressive margin of victory in most games, and, like Boise State, beat No. 24 Oregon State, 30-21. TCU also beat Baylor, Air Force and last week, No. 6 Utah, 47-7.

It's not either team's fault, but it is hard to argue that they should get put in over a team that goes undefeated in the SEC or Pac-10.

Coincidentally, the last time the BCS had this much controversy was in 2004, when Auburn, USC and Oklahoma all finished 12-0 for the regular season. Auburn was the one school left out of the National Championship, leaving people scratching their heads wondering why there wasn't a better way to settle the debate.