AJC > Sports > Blog > Archives > 2005 > December > 09
Friday, December 9, 2005
Playing political football with the BCS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I can’t tell you how much better I am sleeping at night.
Yes, we are in a war halfway around the world. We have over 500,000 of our citizens displaced because of Hurricane Katrina and many of them have lost all of their worldly possessions. The health care system in the country is a mess. And the politicians representing the two major parties in charge of fixing this stuff can’t even agree that the sky is blue.
But I don’t worry about any of that. Things must be going great because Congress, as it turns out, had time enough this week to hold hearings on the state of postseason college football.
You would think that a representative from Texas would know better, but Rep. Joe Barton, a Republican from Arlington, just could not resist getting his 15 minutes of fame. So he and a number of other obscure politicians dragged several college football officials to Washington on Wednesday to testify.
What followed was a sophomoric question-and-answer session that, even by the standards of Congress, hit a new low for banality. I could have found five guys in a sports bar on a Saturday night who could have asked more intelligent, more informed questions of the college football officials who were there.
I spoke to several of the football people who were in the room but they were too polite to share their real feelings about the proceedings. One said it was “interesting”, which is a nice way of saying the whole thing was political grandstanding.
I agree that the BCS is flawed on a number of fronts. I believe there has to be a way to involve more than two teams and keep the bowl system intact. Others believe there should be a full-blown 16-team playoff and that argument, while I don’t agree with it, has some merit. But when it comes to college football, that issue and others will be — and should be — decided by the presidents of the schools involved.
In calling for the hearing, Rep. Barton noted that college football’s postseason often ends in “sniping and controversy, rather than winners and losers.”
No argument there. I would only ask: When did the controversy surrounding college football’s postseason become the business of the federal government? I’ve got a suggestion: Why don’t you guys on Capital Hill actually get SOMETHING done up there instead of preening for C-SPAN and telling me that the people across the aisle are all stupid and evil?
Just get something — anything — accomplished. Then come talk to me about college football.
