If I had spat on the floor of the Mormon Tabernacle on Temple Square, I wouldn't have received as many stern e-mails from the state of Utah as I've had flood into my computer this week.

Whether it be "Josh from Salt Lake" or "David from Ogden," these well-intentioned fans have pleaded to the 65 of us who tonight will cast this season's final vote for the Associated Press Top 25 college football poll.

Their message is simple and heartfelt: The University of Utah, which at 13-0 is the only unbeaten team left on the college football landscape, deserves our vote for No. 1.

Not Florida or Oklahoma, which tonight play in what is titled the BCS National Championship Game. Not Texas, which has just one loss and has defeated Oklahoma head-to-head. Not Southern California, whose coach, Pete Carroll, believes his team is the best in the land.

Not anyone but the Utah Utes, who made an emphatic case by finishing their perfect season with a 31-17 victory over Alabama, which spent five weeks ranked No. 1.

To Utah fans, I say this: You have my sympathy. Not my vote, but my sympathy.

Chances are I will vote the winner of tonight's game No. 1, although there could be a circumstance for which I could justify naming Texas tops in the land. My final regular-season ballot had Florida, Texas and Oklahoma ranked 1, 2 and 3, and if Oklahoma won tonight's game but looked bad doing it (hard to imagine, isn't it?), I would be faced with a tough call.

I had Utah No. 6 in my last ballot, behind No. 4 Southern California and No. 5 Alabama. So Utah is definitely moving up.

But not to No. 1, and therein lies the problem.

Utah may, in fact, be the best team in the country. We don't know, nor will we. It's a guessing game when teams do not meet in some kind of a playoff or elimination series. And because Utah's schedule in the Mountain West Conference includes the likes of San Diego State, New Mexico, UNLV and Wyoming, I can only wonder how the Utes would stand up to a weekly dose of Big 12 or SEC competition.

My guess is that Florida or Oklahoma is a touch better, but I sympathize with Utah fans who believe their team would prevail.

That's why, of course, college football's championship would be so much more compelling if we had a simple, eight-team playoff.

OK, it's not so simple. But if college football wanted to push the envelope a little (and if you told the college football powers there was more money in the envelope), it could happen.

One argument against the playoff is preserving the sanctity of the current bowl system. Hey, I'm a bowl fan. I see the economic boost for the host communities, I understand the value in a bowl trip for teams and their fans and I would never want to kill the glamour of something as magical as the Rose Bowl.

But I believe the bowls can be incorporated into a playoff, making those games more relevant and more profitable than they already are.

Consider this structure, based on the 2008 season:

The top eight teams in the final BCS standings would be included in the playoff.

Four quarterfinal games would have been played on Dec. 22 and Dec. 23. I'm automatically including the four BCS Bowl games (Rose, Orange, Sugar, Fiesta), plus I'm adding two more that will be needed to fill out the semifinal round.

The quarterfinal matchups would have been No. 1 seed Oklahoma vs. No. 8 Penn State in the Capital One Bowl, No. 2 Florida vs. No. 7 Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl, No. 3 Texas vs. No. 6 Utah in the Sugar Bowl and No. 4 Alabama vs. No. 5 Southern California in the Cotton Bowl.

Those winners would advance to the semifinals Jan. 1. The Rose Bowl would host the Orange-Sugar winners, and the Fiesta Bowl would host the Cotton-Capital One winners. Then those winners would be playing tonight in the national championship game.

There would be no extra time lost from school. Every game would be meaningful beyond the Xs and Os intrigue of the matchup. A team like Utah, which has won every game, would have a fighting chance. USC might, in fact, prove it is No. 1.

Yes, fans would have to make difficult travel choices, especially those wanting to follow their school from the quarterfinals all the way to the championship. But college basketball fans already face the same choices with three rounds of NCAA tournament games.

It may not be perfect, and I'm sure it needs tweaking. But ask Utah fans - or Southern Cal fans or Texas fans - if they wish there had been a playoff this year. I guarantee they do. So do many of us doing the voting.

mtupper@herald-review.com|421-7983