The 1993 University of Wisconsin football team was without question one of the greatest stories in Wisconsin sports history. Who could've ever imagined the Badgers -- THE BADGERS -- winning a Rose Bowl at that point in time?

I'll never forget turning to my dad at about 5 a.m. after the Badgers had defeated Michigan State in Tokyo to secure their Rose Bowl berth and saying, "Dad, the Badgers are going to the Rose Bowl. Can you believe it?"

"No," was all he could reply.

The Badgers would complete their dream season by defeating UCLA to win the Rose Bowl, an accomplishment no UW football fan will ever forget. When all was said and done, the Badgers had gone from Big Ten doormat to...No. 6.

Yes, to No. 6. As in, sixth in the country in the final AP rankings. Was winning that Rose Bowl and the two others in the Alvarez years a great joy? Certainly. But I'll never forget the feeling I had after the Badgers beat the Bruins on that New Year's Day in 1994 when the final national rankings came out.

"No. 6?" I asked myself. "That's what this all winds up meaning? No. 6?"

I did not harbor these thoughts as a way of diminishing UW's accomplishments that season. Not at all. Rather, I was -- at the mere age of 11 -- already comprehending the absurdity of the college football bowl system.

In what other sport could this be a plausible scenario: A team finishes at the top of its conference, wins a postseason game against a strong opponent and...just stops playing. You're No. 6, they tell you. No chance to move up. No chance to move on. No chance to play another winner of another postseason game. You're done playing. That's it. That's all there is.

Why do I bring this all up? Well, because UW's most recent game, Saturday's 20-10 loss at home to Iowa in which I was in attendance, reminded me how I feel about college football. I should've been upset over the Badgers' loss. It was certainly an embarrassing one. But the thing is, I really wasn't. And why should I be? What does it really matter? At the end of the day, the Badgers are going to another mid-level bowl game, and everyone will pretend it was such a great season that they did so. Me? I really won't care.

And I don't say this to denigrate the UW program. Sure, I think Bret Bielema has issues, and I would like to see this team beat a quality opponent for once, but my issues have far more to do with apathy than they do with disgruntlement. Frankly, I've gotten past the point of caring whether the Badgers reach the Capital One Bowl, the Outback Bowl, the Sun Bowl, the Moon Bowl, the Preparation H Hemroids Awareness Week Bowl or whether they don't go to a bowl game at all. You know what I thought when the Badgers were routed by Florida State last season in a bowl game I don't remember and don't care to look up the name of? Nothing. I could've cared less.

I'm even starting to feel the same way about the Rose Bowl. At least when the pollsters voted on a "mythical" national champion, you could have multiple teams in different bowl games vying for the title depending on how they played and how others played. Now, only the BCS title game means a thing. The rest are all window dressing, and it's downright depressing.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I still love watching college football. I still watch and root for the Badgers, of course. It's just that, unless a game involves one of the few teams each year that has an actual shot at the national title, each game merely exists in a pod. One team wins, one team loses, and you move on to next week. Longtime defendants of the BCS system will stand strongly behind the notion that every game means something, that every game is like a playoff game because just one loss can submarine your national title hopes.

I just don't agree. Sure, the BCS system might turn a small segment of games from merely big ones into gargantuan ones, but it eliminates so many (including all the major bowl games that aren't the BCS title game) from having any true meaning. If a playoff system that included, say, the champions of each major conference in addition to a certain number of at-large teams existed, so many more games would have so much more meaning. The No. 1 vs. the No. 4 team, like the recent Florida-LSU matchup, would still be huge. But now, suddenly, so would the No. 15 vs. No. 21 team if both were jockeying for position in the conference title race and therefore for the national title.

The other argument defending the bowl system that I just don't get is the old standard, tradition. Sure, at one time when you could only watch teams from your region and never got to see other conferences play, the bowl system had huge implications. If you were a Big Ten fan, maybe you see a Pac-10 team for the first time all season. If you were a Big 12 fan, then maybe you see an SEC team for the first time. And in the biggest bowls, the winner could claim that the best its conference had to offer was better than the best its opponent's conference had to offer. This pride factor was, I imagine, nearly as important as winning the "mythical" national championship at one time.

Nowadays, you can watch teams from coast to coast and border to border every Saturday. Strong teams from different conferences regularly match up in non-conference play. Bowls are no longer a novelty. And, for the last time, don't tell me that the bowl system rakes in the most cash. I'm pretty sure the NCAA could come up with a system that incorporates both the bowls and a true playoff that would still garner tons and tons of cash.

I know I'm the millionth person to cry for a playoff system in college football. But when you no longer really care that much after your team loses a big game or wind up chanting, "We're No. 6," after they win a big one, it makes you get a little vocal, I guess.