LITTLE ROCK — If you’re wondering why Congress feels empowered to call the plays on the college bowl game lineup, blame the guy who fancies himself quarterback-in-chief. Barack Obama clinched the couch potato vote last fall by declaring his support for a playoff series to pick the national champion, then promised after his election to “throw my weight around a little bit” to make it happen.
Senator Orrin Hatch took the president at his word. In October, Hatch sent Obama a 10-page letter urging, among other things, a Justice Department investigation of the Bowl Championship Series ranking system. In July, Hatch held a hearing to look into alleged antitrust violations by the BCS.
Meanwhile, Representative Joe Barton is backing legislation that would prohibit the BCS from marketing its title game as the national championship. The bill has already cleared a House subcommittee.
We’re not the first to observe a couple of remarkable coincidences involving teams that were allegedly robbed by last year’s rankings and the lawmakers who represent those crybaby constituencies.
The 2008-09 bowl lineup was based on the kind of circular calculations that can lead to fistfights at the holiday dinner table.
This year’s rankings only invite morebickering. In a game featuring arguably the nation’s best two teams, undefeated Alabama handed Florida its only loss for the Southeastern Conference title and a spot in the championship game. Texas (13-0) got the other spot. An argument could be made for TCU (12-0) or even Cincinnati (12-0), but we’re staying out of it.
Of all the sports that matter, only Division I football doesn’t have a playoff system. Instead, it has the BCS, which ranks teams based on polling and computer analysis to decide who will play for the national title. The BCS replaced an even worse system in which oftenconflicting polls, taken after the bowl games were over, declared a No. 1 team. Or two No. 1 teams. Or three.
Polite critics of the new system say it favors traditional powerhouses in elite conferences.
Those of us whose teams are regularly relegated to, say, the Outback Bowl, can see right through the political maneuvering on behalf of hometown fans who think their team got jobbed. We think lawmakers should stay out of it-not just because they need to focus on Iran, Afghanistan, health care and the economy but because we’ve seen how they go about making those decisions. We envision the John P. Murtha Bowl, the Don Young Bridge to Nowhere Bowl . . . You get the drift.
Sure, the bowl system can be improved. But not by Congress.
Editorial, Pages 14 on 12/22/2009