Mike Kern | Who's No. 1 . . . who knows??

That's the way college football at the highest level, for better or otherwise, has historically operated.

Exact science it's not.

Which brings us to this season, one of the strangest on file. Ask Appalachian State? Or is that Stanford?

Anyhow, with a month to go before those final Bowl Championship Series standings tell us who's going to play in the ultimate game, where are we?

As one of the 114 voters in the Harris Interactive poll, I take this stuff seriously. There's no right or wrong. Still, I try to make as much sense of it all as is permissible, given the uncommon denominators.

I think Louisiana State is probably the team you'd least like to face. But the Tigers lost at Kentucky in triple overtime, which is why they're ranked third, behind unbeatens Ohio State and Boston College. But ahead of unbeatens Arizona State and Kansas.

I'm not smart enough to know how this is going to play out. I do know the only opinions that matter are the final ones. That's why I'm willing to adjust mine on the fly, and might have Arizona State ahead of BC if both go unbeaten.

I'm into bodies of work.

Who knows if Ohio State or BC would be unbeaten had either had LSU's schedule? That's a job for the computers. My feeling is, if you play in a BCS Conference (sorry, Hawaii) and don't lose, that has to count for something. Or else why play?

That premise could get tested, should LSU (maybe even Oregon or Oklahoma) not lose again.

I've always felt the BCS could be in trouble the moment an unbeaten gets passed over for a team that's not. It might have happened last season, had Rutgers been the unbeaten. The Scarlet Knights or Florida? You make the call.

Yet at least pose this question: If an unbeaten BC comes out of the Atlantic Coast Conference, should that be treated any differently than if Florida State did it?

In the meantime, digest away. A lot can and likely will transpire before we arrive at some sort of conclusion. With any luck, it'll at least be a semilogical one.

Trivial pursuit:

Boston College quarterback Matt Ryan (Penn Charter) should be a Heisman Trophy finalist. Only three Eagles have finished in the top five. Doug Flutie, of course, was third in 1983 and won the following year. Name the others. For bonus points, which two players finished ahead of Flutie in 1983, and who was runner-up in '84. See Answer man.

Small-college docket:

There are three extremely significant matchups on Saturday.