Editor's Note: Column originally appeared Jan. 4, 2001, the morning after the end of the last college football season. A handful of references have been changed to reflect current events.

Congratulations to the Miami Hurricanes. Not only should they win the Rose Bowl, they could also save face for the Bowl Championship Series.

Note this reporter will not congratulate Miami if it wins the so-called national championship. In my eyes, there is no national champion in college football, nor will there be until every team that has a realistic chance to win it is included in the title process.

Which brings us to today's lesson, 10 reasons why college basketball is better than college football:

1) If the BCS ran college basketball, the Final Four teams would convene in Atlanta, ride in separate parade floats, then leave town without actually playing one another. Fans of all four would immediately begin ordering national championship commemoratives, shouting "We're No. 1" in places like Boulder, Eugene and Champaign.

2) If bracketologists ran college football, a playoff would be established in which every team with a reasonable chance to win the tournament is included. The argument that the last team left out of the bracket will complain is moot. The last team left out of the NCAA basketball bracket complains, too, but doesn't have a realistic claim to the championship. The lowest seed to win the NCAA title was a No. 8 (Villanova, 1985); at-large teams are included all the way down to the No. 12 or No. 13 seeds. This is a HUGE margin of error.

3) If the BCS ran college basketball, Maryland (and others teams like them) would already be eliminated from this season's national title hunt. The early November loss to Arizona could have been fatal.

4) If bracketologists ran college football, the so-called "minor bowls" would be re-organized into the NIT of college football. A three- or four-week series would culminate in a mini-championship game at the highest rated bowl not part of the main playoff. Hey, people might even watch the Cotton Bowl again.

5) If the BCS ran college basketball, the nation's top teams would play their last regular season games in mid-February, then sit idle for 42 days awaiting a national championship game for which they'd be rusty and over-prepared.

6) If bracketologists ran college football, student-athletes in that sport would be allowed to compete in December the same way basketball players can. Why is it that football players can't leave campus for weekend games while their basketball counterparts go anywhere, anytime during an allegedly pivotal academic month? If the response is that football's season is too long, then stop playing games in August and early September when the weather is ridiculously hot.

7) If the BCS ran college basketball, any team seeded lower than No. 2 would play single games in random pairings as part of the Meaningless.Com Invitational. Sites would include glamour destinations such as El Paso, Memphis, Detroit and Mobile, Alabama.

8) If bracketologists ran college football, we would be subject to the same second-guessing, debate and projections that make basketball's Selection Sunday among the very best days in sports. We would then deliver a college football tournament that would shatter every record for ratings, exposure, interest and sponsorship dollars (not to mention office pools!).

9) If the BCS ran college basketball, 736 power ratings would be compiled to select and seed the NCAA Tournament field. Say what you want about the NCAA men's basketball committee (and I have!!), but its members actually watch games and debate the merits of respective teams like human beings. They don't leave the job to computers, media members with axes to grind, sports information directors posing as coaches and mathematicians who might not know one end of the football from the other.

10) If bracketologists ran college football, you'd get to read my bracket projections virtually year-round!

With that said, let's turn our attention permanently to a sport that truly understands how to determine its annual champion.

Joe Lunardi is the resident "bracketologist" for ESPN.com. He can be reached at jlunardi@home.com.