Here I am in the year 2000. I can get on a cell phone and track my stocks. I can e-mail a friend from anywhere in the world.

And yet for all our advancements, we're not beyond letting things get where the Dunkin' Donuts (Dunkel) Index and the Scribbled Times (Scripps-Howard) tell us who the best college football teams are. I've got to believe that we're better than this.

I'm looking at these BCS computer rankings in utter disbelief. For instance, you would think Oklahoma as the No. 1 team would be a given right now, except for they're No. 2 in the Dunkin' Donuts, which doesn't seem to understand that the Sooners just beat Texas, Kansas State and Nebraska.

And the way it plays out, I don't think the winner of the Miami-Virginia Tech game will be playing for the national championship, because, while the writers and coaches agree Miami should be third, the Scribbled Times has them ninth, and the Kenneth Massey-Ferguson ratings has them seventh. And while Virginia Tech is second in the polls, Rothman, Rothman and David has the Hokies ninth, but TCU second! That same TCU team comes in 36th in the Hillary (New York) Times.

So you'll either have an undefeated Virginia Tech team, or a Miami team that already beat both FSU and Virginia Tech, eating Tostitos at the Fiesta Bowl, while the Seminoles play Oklahoma. Wouldn't that be just fantastic? If, like me, you're a football fan wanting a playoff, you've got to be giggling inside.

Right now, there are six, possibly eight teams that, if they were playing each other on a neutral field in the middle of nowhere, I don't know who I would take. Give me my eight-team playoff, where we can see a team like TCU play a team like Oklahoma.

Oh, I can see it now: LaDainian Tomlinson going up against that Sooners defense, or Miami taking on Nebraska, and all on a neutral playing field. And I'm imagining the wonderfulness of it. Be patient, my playoff-craving friends. Our time will come.

Because that's basically what millions of fans do to themselves each week when they either a) tear their hair out over a set of rankings that by next week -- and the week after that and the week after that -- will look completely different; or b) waste their breath crying for a playoff that, even if the United Nations got involved, wouldn't happen for at least six years.

First, let's get the playoff thing out of the way. It ain't happening. The BCS got extended last year through 2006. End of story.

As for the BCS rankings, note to Trev: It's still October.

Hey, if the scenario he described actually happened, with one-loss Florida State beating out either undefeated Virginia Tech or one-loss Miami (which beat FSU), I'd be the first to cry foul. But the chances of that happening are about as good as Mike DuBose coaching Alabama next year.

There's a reason BCS architect Roy Kramer originally wanted to wait till the third week of November to release the rankings. They're not meant to be a week-to-week measuring stick, but rather a way of pronouncing Team A's schedule harder than Team B's, after they've played all their games.

Until then, FSU could be No. 3 this week, back to No. 5 next.

And what about all that's left to play on the field? What if Oklahoma goes and loses to Texas A&M, or Miami to Pitt. Then what?

In the best of all worlds, they never would have jumbled up the system with all these arcane computer rankings. Just base it on the straight average of the AP and coaches polls, the ones we've already been using as bibles for over 60 years. If there's a tie for the second spot, then bring in the strength-of-schedule factor.

Really, it'd end a whole lot of unnecessary fuming by Miami and Virginia Tech fans everywhere.

And by Trev, who, as much as he doesn't believe it now, will be surprised to find out Jan. 3 that the two teams playing in the Orange Bowl are -- surprise, surprise -- the top two teams in the Top 25.