The question has traveled beyond the confines of the sports section, into watercooler talk across Utah and the nation:

Why aren't the 13-0 Utah Utes vying for the national championship in college football?

After the Utes thrashed the No. 4-ranked Crimson Tide of Alabama Friday in the Sugar Bowl, it seemed clear that Utes coach Kyle Whittingham was right when he said "somebody's got to tell me why we wouldn't be" the No. 1 team in the nation.

But on Thursday night, the unbeaten Utes will be watching the BCS Championship Game on TV with the rest of us. Instead, it will be the Florida Gators and the Oklahoma Sooners -- teams with one loss each on their records -- vying for the so-called national championship.

Why not the Utes? After all, Utah did all they could on the field. No other team in the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision (what used to be called Division 1-A) went undefeated this season.

And the Utes didn't play a cream-puff schedule. The Utes beat three teams in college football's so-called big leagues, the member conferences of the Bowl Championship Series. And before facing Alabama, they beat five teams that went on to appear in post-season bowl games (three of which won their bowls).

The Utes, alas, are cursed by being part of the Mountain West Conference -- an interloper in the good-ol'-boys club that is the BCS.

They are further cursed by living outside the view of the East Coast media, many of whom vote in the polls that help determine the BCS' national rankings. (In a Monday column, Yahoo! Sports' Dan Wetzel found many poll voters hadn't seen Utah play before the Sugar Bowl.)

Many -- including President-Elect Barack Obama -- have suggested a simple solution: An eight-team playoff, something the NCAA does with the lower-level colleges (what used to be called Division 1-AA).

It makes economic sense. Bowl hosts may complain they don't know what schools are coming to town. That's not a problem for cities hosting basketball's Final Four, where the competing schools aren't known until less than a week before the tourney.

A playoff system would restore credibility to a rigged system that benefits college-sports empires (such as Florida and Oklahoma). It would also make games that have been relegated to second-tier status -- be honest, who outside of USC and Penn State cared about the Rose Bowl? -- relevant once again.

But it won't happen. The blazer-clad old men who control the BCS have locked up contracts with major broadcasters, which will keep the system as it is until 2014.

Their interest isn't in crowning a legitimate national champion, one decided on the field. Their interest is money and protecting their turf. Sorry, Utes.

Sean P. Means writes the Culture Vulture in daily blog form at blogs.sltrib.com/vulture.