The light bulb went off late in the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s BCS championship.

It is such an ingenious, inventive plan, it moved me to immediately turn off the TV and grab a pen and a piece of paper. My only regret is that I didn’t think of it 10 minutes earlier, so I could have been spared having to listen to Thom Brennaman decree Tim Tebow our Lord and Savior.

This idea will forever eliminate funding shortfalls for scholastic athletics. You know that controversial cost-cutting proposal by the Maine Principals’ Association? Scrap it. With this plan, we’ll be able to fund every sport at every level, get the kids new uniforms every year, play preseason games in Florida, hold 20-team Christmas tournaments, and fill Gatorade buckets with Evian water.

Let’s adopt the NCAA Division I model for high school sports in Maine.

Not just in football, either, although that would be the most obvious starting point.

The whole reason the BCS and all of the secondary bowls exist and an actual NCAA football playoff does not is money. The bowl games rake in the green. Even the ones that are played before Christmas in front of thousands of empty seats are cash cows.

That’s because these bowls are able to attract sponsors, and the big-time college football schools know that if you can get your mitts on the corporate cash, it’s almost as good as putting your hand out on Capitol Hill. Start a legitimate playoff and a lot of that money goes away.

We could hold bowl games all over the state and get the business bigwigs involved. We could have the Sugarloaf Earmuffs Bowl in Farmington, the Unum Pothole Bowl in Portland, the Humpty Dumpty Potato Bowl in Presque Isle, the Bass Factory Outlet Store Bowl at Traip, the Hollywood Slots Paul Bunyan Bowl in Bangor, the L.L. Bean Bowl in Freeport, the BIW Bowl at Morse, the MBNA Lobster Bowl in Belfast (sorry Shriners, you’ll have to settle for the Fez Bowl), and, of course, the Sun Journal Mark Laflamme’s Latest Book Bowl in Lewiston.

That’s perfect. Why didn’t we start doing this five years ago?

But what about determining the state champions, you ask? Who cares? There’s money to be made here. You know, for the good of all the students and student/athletes.

Okay, if you insist. Let’s just take the two teams with the fewest losses and put them in one of the bowls, rotating them among Portland, Lewiston and Bangor. If more than two teams qualify, let’s just have a computer decide the final two. The other teams will complain, but that generates discussion. That’s good for high school football. Controversy keeps it in the papers and on the talk shows year-round.

We can make even more money if we implement the BCS model for basketball. Heck, the way things are unfolding in the KVAC this year, it’s an NCAA bureaucrat’s dream.

Leavitt had one win going into Saturday. That win was over Mt. Ararat, which was one of seven 4-4 teams when the latest Heal Points were released. Mt. Ararat beat Morse, which beat Edward Little, which beat Bangor, which beat Mt. Blue, which beat Brewer, the only one-loss team heading into Saturday.

Of course, that sets up what looks to be one heck of a wide open and exciting Eastern A basketball tournament in one month. But if we have a basketball BCS in every class and get some big sponsors, maybe sell the TV rights to NESN, we could break the bank.

We could even take a school that everybody thinks plays an inferior schedule every year (Mountain Valley?) and treat them like the BCS treated Utah. Freeze them out and let the big conferences, the Western Maine Conference and KVAC battle for what is rightfully there’s anyway.

We’ll give the winner a sparkling crystal basketball, and everybody else could play for trophies filled with boots or something. Who cares? When it’s over, 10 teams will have a legitimate argument for being state champs based on who they beat during the regular season.

And isn’t that what really makes sports great, the regular season?