Is college football's Cosa Nostra doomed to fall by way of its own erratic gunfire?

One could only hope, proving there really is a heaven, that someone in a higher authority can't even stand it anymore – or at least no longer can stand to hear us gripe about it.

No doubt, the Bowl Championship Series is having cramps. Something it ate. Greed, peppered with stupidity.

San Diego State's president, Dr. Stephen Weber, who cares for the BCS as he does academic fraud – and finds the two comparable – thinks this time the BCS may have found a petard upon which to hoist itself.

"I believe it's falling apart under its own weight," says Weber, who has represented the non-BCS Mountain West Conference in its recommendations for changes in the system with a group of six presidents representing BCS leagues.

"The BCS is corrupt in its basis, but still ineffective."

Overwhelmed by the brouhaha created over the USC-LSU-Oklahoma mess, BCS coordinator Mike Tranghese has acknowledged that the system is flawed, that the human factor should weigh more in the polling, that he "hates computers" and would like to see them go, and that teams that don't win their own conferences – such as Oklahoma – should not be a part of the BCS Championship Game.

The captain of the Titanic might have changed course, too, if what he thought was a passenger's discarded vodka rocks were really the tip of an iceberg.

Thing is, Tranghese can only recommend. He cannot change things on his own. That's up to the presidents of the six BCS conferences, and they like the money the system brings, like the idea that even the biggest stiffs in their leagues get their paws on some of the millions.

Warts be damned.

Time and again, Tranghese has said the presidents will not go for a playoff system, which of course would be the fair and just avenue.

"They're talking about the BCS presidents. Be clear. Not the rest of us," Weber says. "We want some way for all athletes to compete for a national championship. We're eager to get it opened up to any team good enough.

"We expect to get back together (with the BCS people) in late March or April and, while we're studying options, my concern is that this may prove to be a dance. We're making progress, but you can make progress on the dance floor and end up where you started."

And, face it, the non-BCS folks don't exactly have the power of the Supreme Court. What they have is right on their side. Right doesn't always prevail.

"The non-BCS group is a very uneven group with a whole different set of self-interests," Weber says. "It's hard to pull us together.

"But the fundamental problem is fairness to athletes."

Weber is convinced, as am I, that this all will end up in court. It's inevitable that the lawyers get involved. Too much money is at stake. As it is, members of congress – not all lawmakers attended BCS universities, you see – are rattling sabers.

"We're asking for fundamental fairness," Weber says, "and my belief is that, if we don't get that fundamental fairness, it will end up in court. I argued for going to court when we were in the WAC, and I lost 15-1.

"It seems we're always cursed with adults being around the table."

Weber thinks it's great that USC and LSU are splitting this national championship, especially interesting when you consider both are BCS schools.

"I do. It's good," he says. "One of the problems is that the BCS fundamentally is a cartel. One of the nice things about a cartel is that it might make the trains run on time, so there's a certain tolerance for evil schemes. But the BCS can't make the trains run on time.

"You can see the injustice when you see the worst team in the Pac-10 take home far more money than a TCU will ever get. It's a sweetheart deal, but it's an injustice to half the football players in this country."

Besides the idiocy of having computer nerds help determine its championship, the BCS has other worries. The Big East Conference, one of its own, is going to lose three football schools – Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College – and one of the four BCS bowls, the Rose, could return to its senses.

"The Rose Bowl contract (with the BCS) is up," Weber says, "and the Rose Bowl was a reluctant partner. What are the Pac-10 and Big Ten going to do? They just had a great bowl and their fans already consider it far more important than any other bowl.

"If the Pac-10 and Big Ten don't re-up, what does the BCS mean then? And the Big East is going to be the not-so-Big East. If the Mountain West expands, its prospective RPI (strength of schedule) is stronger this coming year than the Big East's."

The tumult is going to continue, for sure, and machinations will go on and the lawyers are going to get involved. But, no matter what – and there have been rumors that the academic side of San Diego State has grown less and less football-friendly – Weber says Division I-A football at his university is too important to go away.

"It is critical to the long-term viability and success of our university," Weber says. "We're not going to achieve greatness as a university without it."

But Weber and all the other little guys are fighting for survival. And they can't go on living this way if the collegiate Mafia continues to control the streets.