BCS IS FINE IF YOU'RE NASA.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Next Monday night, the data collectors, math wizards and philosophers behind the so-called BCS will climb down from their ivory tower and reveal their first official standings of the 2000 college football season.

The BCS, as you might know, is the Bowl Championship Series, which uses painfully complex arithmetic to determine which schools will compete in the January bowl designated as the national-title game.

Today, the simple mind behind this column renews its call for a better way. Allow me to outline the ECS - the Easier Championship System.

The BCS, from the looks of it, requires a bank of NASA computers to make sense of its 15 separate statistical categories. The ECS, devised at my cluttered desk, requires a pencil and a single sheet of paper.

The BCS combines the existing wire-service and coaches' polls, teams' records and schedule strengths and muddles things by throwing in a lot of decimal points. The ECS can be understood by a child of 6, or a middle linebacker of 20.

The BCS, in its first two seasons, produced title-game matchups of Tennessee-Florida State in 1998 (Tennessee won in the Fiesta Bowl) and Florida State-Virginia Tech in 1999 (Florida State won in the Sugar Bowl). The ECS, if it had been used the past two seasons, would have produced precisely the same pairings - at considerably less expense of money, energy and time.

Here's the remarkably plain theory behind the ECS: If it wants to be known as the best in the country, a team should a.) go undefeated, and b.) beat strong opponents in the process.

Here's how the ECS would choose its national-title finalists:

--Write down the names of all of the undefeated teams.

--Write down the rankings of the teams they defeated (using the Associated Press poll at the time they played).

--The two teams with the most victories over top-10 opponents go to the title game.

--In case teams have the same number of victories over top-10 opponents, take the ones who beat the highest-ranked opponents. If another tiebreaker is needed, go with the teams with the most victories over top-25 opponents.

--If there aren't two undefeated teams with victories over top-25 opponents, consider teams with one loss.

Easy, especially compared to the BCS, which takes four pages to explain in its media guide. When you think about it, a team shouldn't have to wait for a computer to say whether it's any good.

So what would the ECS rankings look like if the season had ended last Saturday?

Of the five major-college teams with perfect records, Oklahoma (6-0) is the only one that has beaten a top-10 opponent (Kansas State was No. 2 when they played). Nebraska (6-0) is the only other undefeated team that has beaten a top-25 opponent (Notre Dame was No. 23). So Oklahoma and Nebraska would meet in our national-title game if this were January.

Coincidentally, Oklahoma and Nebraska will actually meet in a regular- season game Oct. 28. That and other key games - notably Virginia Tech (6-0) vs. Miami (4-1) on Nov. 4, and Clemson (7-0) vs. Florida State (6-1) the same day - will bring changes in our rankings as the season goes on.

But the challenge will remain pretty basic for national-title hopefuls under the ECS: Play strong opponents. Beat them all.

It's playoff pressure every week.

This is expected to be a rough year for the BCS because (so far) it seems more teams are crowded into the unbeaten and once-beaten elite. If that's a problem for the lords of the NCAA, here's the solution.

The Easy Championship System is available for a small fee. Or they can figure it out with their own pencil and paper.

The first official Bowl Championship Series rankings of the season won't be announced until halftime of next Monday night's NFL game televised by ABC. But the Associated Press has revealed ``unofficial'' BCS rankings.

The AP, quoting Chicago-based mathematician Jerry Palm, says Nebraska would be No. 1 and Virginia Tech No. 2 if the BCS formula were applied now.

Nebraska and Virginia Tech also are 1-2 in the AP media poll and USA Today/ESPN coaches' poll.

Nebraska is 6-0, including a victory over then-No. 23 Notre Dame. Virginia Tech is 6-0 but has yet to face a ranked opponent.

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