Following another Saturday of college football games, the season’s first Bowl Championship Series standings will be revealed Oct. 19. Prepare for a cacophony of caterwauling and a tortuous tumult on cable TV, talk radio and the Internet.

Everybody hates the BCS, but everybody loves to gab about it and analyze it – when they’re not trashing it.

If it weren’t for the BCS, Americans would have nothing to debate most years but the economy, global warming and where Larry King gets those suspenders. How boring would that be?

As we know, the BCS rankings – like all polls – are based on guesswork corrupted by regional biases. How can anyone accurately compare teams from different parts of the country; teams playing vastly different schedules?

It can’t be done, yet for the sake of giving us something to argue about, college football continues to perpetuate the myth that there are people smarter than we are who know what they’re doing. There aren’t. They don’t.

To review: The BCS standings include three components – The USA Today coaches poll, the Harris Interactive poll and an average of six computer rankings.

I don’t know which is more unreliable – the people doing the voting or the computers analyzing the data.

The best we can say for the inaugural 2008 BCS rankings is that they don’t count for much, sort of like the media and coaches polls this time of year.

On the strength of its victory over top-ranked Oklahoma, Texas is No. 1 this week in the popularity rankings. Longhorns coach Mack Brown knows how much that’s worth.

“Every week, we’re seeing teams learn the hard way that the only poll that matters, or lasts, is the final one,” he said.

During the 2007 season, which was wildly unpredictable, the same lessons applied. Have we already forgotten?

In 2007, the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the Associated Press poll fell on the same weekend three times.

Last season, five different teams held the No. 2 spot briefly before tumbling into the abyss.

If some of our memories were better, we wouldn’t have to go on Google, as I did, to recall that Missouri and West Virginia went into the final weekend ranked 1-2 – destined to play for the BCS crown – before both lost.

Missouri, the nation’s No. 1-ranked team on Dec. 1, did not even play in a BCS game.

Think anybody knows who will play in this year’s BCS title game? Not a chance.

Last season, LSU was No. 7 in the BCS on Dec. 1, but by the next day, inexplicably, the Tigers were No. 2 and poised to win the national title. In the championship game, LSU defeated Ohio State, which was No. 7 in the BCS in November before catapulting to No. 1.

“If you’re No. 1 in January, it becomes a statement,” Brown said during the weekend.

Much earlier and it’s eyewash. The rankings are simply conversation starters, after all.

Still, who isn’t tempted to gaze into a crystal ball?

But not so fast. This is college football, after all, which is murder on pundits.

Saturday, the No. 1, 3 and 4 teams in the AP poll all lost. Will this season turn out to be as volatile as last?

If we’re lucky, yes.