the idea of playoffs. I do. I don’t understand the fascination with them, other than Utah can whine about going undefeated, and Texas can whine about not beating Texas Tech yet somehow convince themselves they were worthy of a national title game.

Is the BCS chaotic? Yes, it is, but the very history and layout of college football is chaotic, and I’m not sure that there’s a way to make it fair for everyone since that seems to be the biggest reason congress had these hearings in the first place. Conferences are inherently screwy – year after year, the SEC plays the best football in the land (top to bottom), and a Midwest Conference team wouldn’t stand a chance in that conference. Yet, they somehow wish to put themselves on the same level.

You constantly hear “college football is the only sport without a playoff” as some sort of rallying cry as to why it should exist. I don’t understand that either. If you want football with a playoff, there’s the NFL, in which everything is laid out in nice, even, equal pieces. It’s fair. Boring, mostly, but fair. Or if you want to step down a level, there’s Div IAA, II and III. They play good football there, but I’m guess it’s not the ego-building stuff you’re looking for.

As for bowl games there is history and tradition, which I admit seem to be of little value these days. Complain all you want about the “little” bowls, but there’s a lot of history in the Rose Bowl, whether you want to admit it or not. You going to throw it all away? Probably not, which means a playoff will end up involving the major bowls, which will end up being patently unfair to cold-weather schools and we’ll be screwed all over again.

A NIT tournament? Come on, Mike, give me a break. More playoffs? One isn’t enough, you want two?

All of this wouldn’t be as big an issue if the powerhouse schools would develop better schedules. If schools like Texas and Texas Tech actually played someone of consequence in the pre-season, we could make a better determination of who belongs in it in the end. They’re most likely not going to decree that, though, are they, because all the “body bag” schools would be left without a budget.

IF (big IF) I were a congressman, and you told me to come up with the plan, I’d blow it all up and start from scratch. ALL of it. I’d eliminate the major conferences, major rivalries, major everything. I’d break the current 120 or so schools into the conferences I felt they fit best, determined by geography. And if you didn’t like it, well tough shit. You shouldn’t have asked me in the first place.

My biggest fear (and I’m sure it’s shared) is that congress will do to college football what it’s doing to everything else these days – make some declaration about how things should be without fully considering the consequences of their actions. Then we’ll be left with whatever that group of boobs (not the good kind of boobs either) comes up with. Think it’ll be better than what we have now? I don’t, which is why I don’t mind what we’ve got.

That’s enough for this post.

From another article about congress and the BCS:

The hearing took place on a day when the House was out of session, and the three members who attended — Barton, Rush and Texas Democrat Gene Green — noted that their discussion was not taking them away from more pressing tasks.

Apparently because they have nothing to do as the world comes apart. Wow.

When really it’s up to the television networks what happens?
Plus the BCS is under contract until 2012?.
And the University Presidents would have to agree, and that’s not going to happen.

Pointless hearing.