Jason Campbell and the 12-0 Auburn Tigers would agree. AP

Well, at least we've made some progress.

Before this month there were two Most Asinine Situations in American Sport, but one -- the toothless drug-detection program in baseball -- at last appears set to be corrected ... as the MLB Players' Association finally has severed its close relationship with The Flat Earth Society. This leaves only one Most Asinine Situation In American Sport: the college football bowl arrangement.

Here's the way it works. Teams start practicing in August and play a regular-season schedule into December ... whereupon 56 of them suddenly stop playing for a month or more, then play one more game. Imagine baseball taking a break after the regular season, then playing the World Series over Thanksgiving. But it's hunky-dory in college football because these made-for-TV shows are certified as "bowl games." Eight of the teams -- based on a complicated formula, rife with so much temptation that figure skating judges seem to be, by comparison, exactly like what Diogenes was looking for -- then are selected to play in what is called the Bowl Championship Series ... even though it is not a series and it is not a championship.

But these eight teams make oodles of money, and the chosen two are supposed to be playing for the national title, even though this is invariably open to question, as it is again this year. As you can see, this is indisputably the Most Asinine Situation in American Sport.

Every sensible person says, hey, instead of having 56 teams play postseason games willy-nilly, why don't we have the best four, or maybe even eight, teams stop practicing for a month and engage in a playoff, so we can come up with a real champion? After all, as Li'l Abner used to say, it's a "natural fact" that playoffs are held in virtually every other college sport, including, by the by, football in the lesser divisions. But college presidents, in their wisdom, maintain that we can't have a playoff in big-time college football because it would keep the so-called student-athletes away from their classes. Why this doesn't seem to be an issue with basketball student-athletes and lacrosse student-athletes and all-the-other-division football student-athletes is never explained by the wise presidents.

If the rationale is goofy, however, the process is dubious, if not scandalous. Various computer statistics are merged with two polls to determine who makes the big-money games. The Associated Press polls 65 writers, ESPN/USA Today polls 61 coaches. The coaches refuse to let their ballots be made public, which is not surprising since many of them have a vested financial interest in whether teams from their conference get selected. But the writers, too, are subjected to pressure, even harassment. One of the AP electors, Paul Gattis of the Huntsville (Ala.) Times, has been pilloried for being an honest journalist and not casting a home-state sweetheart ballot for Auburn. Then all these suspect votes are mixed with arcane computer figures to come up with a final tabulation. It's a travesty.

Oliver Cromwell was something of a bore and a horrible scold, but he must have been thinking about college football when, so very wisely, he said: "A few honest men are better than numbers."

Sports Illustrated senior contributing writer Frank Deford is a regular contributor to SI.com and appears each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. He is a longtime correspondent for HBO's Real Sports and his new novel, An American Summer (Sourcebooks Trade), is available at bookstores everywhere.