Overlooked BCS Negative - Time of Layoff

College football fans focus so much on the problems of the BCS ranking system and who gets into what bowl that we tend to forget another huge problem: the layoff between the end of the season and the bowl games.

As they continue to push the important bowls onto their own nights, and even push the championship game days beyond the last bowl (the last major bowl, the Sugar Bowl was played on January 3rd while the Orange Bowl is being played on January 8th), they increase the amount of time between the teams' final games and when they play in the BCS Championship Game. The announcers of the game this evening have mentioned several times that it's been 51 days since OSU last played. Granted a week of that is because the Big Ten doesn't have a conference championship game, but that's almost 2 months and it's completely ridiculous. These teams are not at their best going 1-2 months between games. This cheapens the true meaning of the game where it should be the two best teams in the nation, presumably playing their best football, entertaining the fans with a great football game. Instead, it's two teams that haven't played a meaningful game in over a month struggling through rust to hit their stride. It's turned into a battle of which team fights off the rust first rather than the best team winning the game.

The BCS really needs to address this issue along with a playoff system. I understand that it's tradition to have New Year's Day packed with college football games, but they're already breaking that up by spreading out the bigger bowls by putting them on their own night, and the BCS Championship Game isn't even played until a week later. If they're going to do that, why not just move all the games up to a week after the season ends? Does it really matter when they're played anymore? If these games are really for both the players on the field and the fans in the stands, then make sure these games are as good as they should be. Unfortunately, however, corporate sponsorships and money are the only things that really matter.