I can tell you what Bear Bryant would have said about this computer-driven Frankenstein known as the Bowl Championship Series that took yet another high-speed turn Friday without benefit of blinker or brakes:

"I've never met a computer yet that could make a goal-line stand on fourth down with time running out and the national championship on the line." That's what he would have said.

Oh, but Bryant had a linebacker or two who could hunker down and make those plays. First name that comes to mind is Lee Roy Jordan, who, along with Texas' Tommy Nobis, was the ball-stuffing linebacker of the sixties. Another is Barry Krauss, the wild man with the devilish grin, who turned back Penn State at the Sugar Bowl's ten-inch line to give Bear his fifth national title in 1979.

	“	He would have said the game should be settled between the players. So somewhere along the line, he would have wanted the participants chosen by the coaches. ”
		— Gene Stallings, on Bear Bryant's likely reaction to the BCS

That Sugar Bowl was one of the greatest games ever played because it was old school. It was a classic defensive struggle between titans that were both talented and beautifully prepared and coached. Joe Paterno, who would break Bryant's all-time record for career victories just last season, was on the other sideline.

For almost sixty minutes, the Superdome had rocked as if Jagger were in the house. Alabama led 14-7 with the Lions facing fourth-and-goal. Penn State had taken three failed stabs within the Crimson Tide one-yard line and now, as the noise rolled like thunder, not even a computer could think.

Between plays 'Bama linebacker Marty Lyons asked Penn State quarterback Chuck Fusina, "how far do you have to go?"

"About ten inches."

"Better pass."

Fusina didn't listen. Running back Mike Guman tried sailing over the top and suffered a midair collision with a low-flying Krauss. Guman fell a yard short. In Alabama, it is still know as the Goal-Line Stand. Not a computer on this planet could have pulled it off.

So, I ask, where are we drifting now? Is the BCS taking us on another ride? Friday, the BCS decided to change the formula again, eliminating margin of victory as one of the key elements. BCS coordinator Mike Tranghese notified the founders of eight computer rankings, which make up a fourth of the BCS computer system, that it's time to adjust.

This mandate comes on the heels of two straight national championship match-ups that were less than perfect. Oklahoma-Florida State in 2001 should have been Oklahoma-Miami, and Miami-Nebraska of last January really needed Oregon as the second team. At the time, I didn't buy the Oregon debate, but after watching the Ducks unravel Colorado 38-16, I was convinced they belonged in the Big Game.

Though the BCS is trying to improve the system, worries linger. Here is the scary part: The BCS was a glutton for controversy when it was introduced in 1998. Now the monster grows. More changes inspire more questions. What's next, and how far must we go to find championship bliss.

Men like Bryant and Woody Hayes, the no-nonsense, hard-fisted coaches from another age, would have broken noses, possibly cleaned a few bars, over this BCS chaos. When Bryant said, "championships are meant to be won on the field," he meant it. He won six.

Even more obsessed with winning national titles was Hayes, who would drill his Ohio State Buckeyes day-after-day in full pads for almost three weeks leading to bowl games. They won a national title in 1968 with Jim Stillwagon, one of the great names, and one of the greatest linebackers to play the game.

"Woody lived for the successes of his teams and there is no question that the national championship was everything," Stillwagon said. "Sometimes when we got to bowl games, he got mono-vision and really lost sight of the whole picture. Sometimes he did more damage than good."

How would have Hayes reacted if a computer had cost the Buckeyes a shot at the title game? Say that Michigan would have played USC one year for the championship instead of Ohio State.

"Let's put it this way," Stillwagon said. "Ohio State didn't get to go to the Rose Bowl in 1961 thanks to a vice provost that decided OSU was an academic school not a football school. Woody worked until he got that guy fired. He was that mad. The guy got sacked for that."

Stillwagon laughed and said, "you have to remember that Woody was the people's choice. He was like Elvis."

Clearly, a large reason the BCS exists today is that there are no Woodys or Bears around to rock the boat.

Hayes, the commander of a ship in World War II, lived by the code of battle. His metaphors on war were all over the locker room. He toured Vietnam on his own money. He loved Patton more than life. This was not a man born of the computer age.

Minutes before the biggest game of the year against Michigan, he asked Stillwagon, the team captain, to deliver the pregame pep talk. Stillwagon paused momentarily to gather his thoughts.

"As I walked toward the front of the room, Woody was there pounding me on the back," Stillwagon said. "He was yelling, 'Go tell 'em it's war! Go tell 'em it's war!'"

As for Bryant's stance on the matter, no one knows that better than Gene Stallings, who played and coached under The Master, and sent him heaven's gift with a national championship eight years ago as the coach of the Crimson Tide. If anyone knows Bryant's mind, it is Gene Stallings.

"He would have said the game should be settled between the players," Stallings said. "So somewhere along the line, he would have wanted the participants chosen by the coaches."

Bryant was so obsessed with the principle of winning the right way that he managed to forego a national championship in 1956. His Texas A&M Aggies and the Houston Cougars were tied 14-14 late in the game with the ball resting at the one-yard line. Bryant called for a chip-shot field goal to win the game. But, at the last second, he changed his mind.

"If we can't score from the one, we don't deserve to win the game," he told the team. They didn't. And the 9-0-1 Aggies finished third in the final polls.

So what would have Bryant really have said about the BCS?

"Take out the 'C' and see what you got."

Jim Dent is the author of "Junction Boys" and "The Undefeated" and is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.