The Bowl Championship Series is a hallowed time of the winter holidays when football fans can gather together to complain about which team they feel deserves to be No. 1.Is it the Boise State Broncos who managed to go undefeated and upset the touted Oklahoma Sooners?

Or what about the Wisconsin Badgers who worked their way through the pollsters’ hearts with a 12-1 season?

Complaints that continually fuel fans with watercooler discussions and uninformed debates range from how Florida head coach Urban Meyer supposedly lobbied for a berth in the national championship to why does the BCS exist while Division 1-AA schools have a playoff bracket?

Last fall, during a press conference, TCU head coach Gary Patterson explained the benefits of the BCS and how bowl games are a prize for the competitors rather than a tournament, which is a rather merciless approach toward the college football post season.

“It’s a reward for the athletes and all their hard work,” Patterson said. “A tournament does not really give that chance.”

The privilege to play in a bowl game sometimes is squandered by the tournament style when a team does not have the opportunity to get to explore the city and enjoy the fun that comes with playing with the whole team in a new situation, Patterson said.

The BCS may be a flawed system with a computerized ranking system, but the top two picks still come down to a coach’s choice.

Similar to a student council election, promising to vote for somebody does not ensure a vote, so complaining about Meyer does not change the fact that the other NCAA Division I football coaches felt his Gators were the best pick to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes in the BCS National Championship.

Similar to any pee-wee football coach’s philosophy, the best way to beat a team is on the scoreboard, and 41-14 is a definite statement of who deserves to be atop the BCS polls.

Sports editor Marcus Murphree for the editorial board.