Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Yeah, as much as I want a Playoff system in College football

This is not the way I want to see it done, congress has no business screwing with College Football!

Game-changing call to college football: Playoff
Email this Story

May 1, 3:59 PM (ET)

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER

WASHINGTON (AP) - Tackling an issue sure to rouse sports fans, lawmakers pressed college football officials Friday to switch the Bowl Championship Series to a playoff, with one Texas Republican likening the current system to communism and joking it should be labeled "BS," not "BCS."

John Swofford, the coordinator of the BCS, rejected the idea of switching to a playoff, telling a House panel that it would threaten the existence of celebrated bowl games. Sponsorships and TV revenue that now go to bowl games would instead be spent on playoff games, "meaning that it will be very difficult for any bowl, including the current BCS bowls, which are among the oldest and most established in the game's history, to survive," Swofford said.

Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, who has introduced legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a game a national championship unless it's the outcome of a playoff, bluntly warned Swofford: "If we don't see some action in the next two months, on a voluntary switch to a playoff system, then you will see this bill move."

After the hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee commerce, trade and consumer protection subcommittee, Swofford told reporters: "Any time Congress speaks, you take it seriously."

Yet it is unclear whether lawmakers will try to legislate how college football picks its No. 1 before the first kickoff of the fall season. Congress is grappling with a crowded agenda of budgets, health care overhaul and climate change, and though President Barack Obama favors a playoff, he hasn't made it a legislative priority.

College football's multimillion-dollar television contract also could be an obstacle.

The BCS's new four-year deal with ESPN, worth $125 million per year, begins with the 2011 bowl games. That deal was negotiated using the current BCS format. While ESPN has said it would not stand in the way if the BCS wanted to change, the new deal allows the BCS to put off making major changes until the 2014 season.

Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law expert at George Washington University, said the legislation could result in a court challenge.

"This is a rare effort by Congress to prevent people from using what is a common description of sporting events," he said in a telephone interview. The legislation, he said, "may run afoul of the contractual agreements between parties, wiping out benefits that have already been paid for by companies."

Barton, the top Republican on the committee, said at the hearing that efforts to tinker with the BCS were bound to fail.

"It's like communism," he said. "You can't fix it."

He quipped that the BCS should drop the "C" from its name because it doesn't represent a true championship.

"Call it the 'BS' system," he said to laughter.

The current system features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer rankings.

Under the BCS, some conferences get automatic bids to participate while others do not. Conferences that get an automatic bid - the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC - get about $18 million each, far more than the non-conference schools. Swofford is also commissioner of the ACC.

"How is this fair?" asked the subcommittee chairman, Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois, who has co-sponsored Barton's bill. "How can we justify this system ... are the big guys getting together and shutting out the little guys?"

"I think it is fair, because it represents the marketplace," Swofford responded.

Craig Thompson, commissioner of the Mountain West Conference, which does not get an automatic bid, called the money distribution system "grossly inequitable."

The MWC has proposed a playoff and hired a Washington firm to lobby Congress for changes to the BCS. The proposal calls for scrapping the BCS standings and creating a 12-member committee to pick which teams receive at-large bids, and to select and seed the eight teams chosen for the playoff. The BCS has previously discussed, and dismissed, the idea of using a selection committee.

The four current BCS games - the Sugar, Orange, Rose and Fiesta bowls - would host the four first-round playoff games under the proposal.

Valero Alamo Bowl chief executive Derrick Fox, representing the 34 members of the Football Bowl Association, said that a playoff "is rife with dangers for a system that has served collegiate athletics pretty well for 100 years."

But Gene Bleymaier, athletic director at Boise State University, noted that his school's football team went undefeated several times, yet never got a chance to play for the national championship under the BCS.

Asked by Rush whether Congress should intervene, Bleymaier responded, "The only way this is going to change is with help from the outside."

In the Senate, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch has put the BCS on the agenda for the Judiciary's antitrust subcommittee this year, and Utah's attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, is investigating whether the BCS violates federal antitrust laws.

Fans were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season. The title game pitted No. 1 Florida (12-1) against No. 2 Oklahoma (12-1); Florida won 24-14 and claimed the title.

(This version CORRECTS TIGHTENS lede; corrects to conference in 18th graf. Moving on general news and sports services. AP Video.)

Pay Off would suit me find, but should be changed without Government Intrusion

Holy smokes. Those guys are dumber than even I believed.

I agree 100%. I would much prefer a playoff system. I can't believe the things in which our government officials believe it necessary to insert themselves. Holy Crap!!!

I have repeatedly gone on record as being opposed to a play-off system for a variety of reasons. This is just one of the problems that I anticipated.

Swofford is a friggin idiot. Always has been.

The only justification I can see for Congress getting involved is that the vast majority of teams involved suck on the public teat.

As far as diminishing Bowls? Swofford is a moron, but I repeat myself. You could make the bowls bigger than they have ever been if they become the playoff, semi final and final games. How many people gave a rats arse when Cinci played VT in the Orange Bowl this year? Now if that was a playoff game, how many people would watch?

Playoffs create excitement. People watch the Final Four because of it's format. Men's basketball games wouldn't fill a lobby in a Holiday Inn Express if not for that format.

It's about time we threw all of those idiots out! They will not protect our border but are worried about the MNC? Good grief!
BTW Foxbat I cared about the OB and was very happy with the outcome!

No offense meant to either team, just an example of a game that was not a ratings juggernaut for a BCS bowl.

I agree.. The politiicans don't have more to do than to do this. maybe there are too many of them. maybe they need to have shorter sessions. Wasn't the job intended to be part time anyway??

None taken at all. The only bowl that really gets covered now is the BCS game. I would rather go back to where it was before the BCS and Bowl Alliance, no big deal if the polls split.

Let me adjust my Crimson glasses slick back my mullet open a Pabst blue ribbon and offend everyone in the State of Utah.Arrogance comes standard with Alabama football fans like myself(Jim or any other Aubie would so back that up!)I say let'em have their playoff add a couple games and let's just see what's what on the field.But let's do away with scholarship limits and let Boosters and Corporate America provide as many kids as they can afford cause that's the American way right? If that were to happen lawsuit city because you would see 125 jerseys on the sidelines in Tuscaloosa to prevent those second level ballplayers from sigining elsewhere.College football is Ohio St/Michigan Florida/Georgia Notre Dame/Usc Oklahoma/Texas Auburn/Lsu Alabama/Tennessee.It's not Utah state polytech vs. California teachers college for lefthanders.Arrogant narrowminded bluster on my part? perhaps but if Alabama were to win 11 games and have to play a bowl game in Boise,Idaho yall would see the RV's and heah this Southern drawl because as Keith Jackson said when we played Miami in the Sugar bowl "They know how to get the tickets and the way to New Orleans." We like to pick and poke fun at one another here at the 'Fire but if you take the time to look it up you'll see some familliar names on the alltime winningest programs for games,bowls what have you.

Amen from TN.

However, I would support a playoff of the top 16 or 8 teams. Name all those games the Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Citrus Bowl, etc. You all get the point-

Keep the bowl games, keep the names, form them into a playoff-

Let's see, last 30 years aka relevant times aka modern era. Top 3 appear to be teams Dave didn't mention and I don't see all those SEC teams he did mention anywhere in the top 10 'cept UF/UGA barely cracking the top 10.

1 Nebraska 0.78886 304 81 1 386
2 Florida State 0.77690 294 83 4 381
3 Miami-Florida 0.76613 285 87 0 372
4 Ohio State 0.75000 282 92 6 380
5 Boise State 0.74233 121 42 0 163
6t Michigan 0.73747 277 97 5 379
6t Oklahoma 0.73747 277 97 5 379
8 Penn State 0.72340 271 103 2 376
9 Georgia 0.71733 266 103 6 375
10 Florida 0.71447 269 106 5 380

Oh, for crying out loud, it's because they spend each and every season beating each other up!

If someone would hurry up and post some pictures of themselves with dead animals, it would end the argument right there by proving who is right.

Exactly what I'm saying. That would make 7 bowl or 15 bowl games as big or bigger than they have ever been. That's why Swofford is just being an idiot.

Boy, it's a good thing that congress doesn't have anything better to worry about, like a ballooning defecit, two wars overseas, illegal immagration, the auto industry imploding, corrupt members of Congress (Frank, Dodd, Feinstein, Pelosi)... huh? What? All those things are happening? Well what do you know. Nevermind.

Go ahead and muck up college football. You did such a fine job with the steroids in baseball thing.

Bowl games make lots of money for the schools and networks, and anyone who thinks they will willingly change things is wrong.

I (and a few other folks) happen to enjoy bowl games as is - whoever winds up National Champion in the current format is da winnah with us.

I cannot believe the dicks in Congress are arrogant or pompous or naive enough to think they have any right or reason to regulate this. Your tax dollars at work. They should really address the genuine problems facing our nation - maybe look really hard at impeaching the dickhead that is running the show these days.

E-mailed my 2 Senators and 1 House Reprentative today and told them they have some more pressing issues to worry about than screwing up college football more than it already is . . .

Well the"chosen one" wants a play off, I reckon he is done fixing the economy,solving the mid east problem and appearing on late night TV so he is on to collage football.

Um bowl record all time? 18W's 13L's 18+13=31
Ua bowl record all time? 31W's 21L's 3 ties 31+21+3=55

Whose most responsible for building UM into a football power? Alabama's old offensive cordinator Howard Schnellenberger yup the same dude who brought Joe Namath to Tuscaloosa.We all know what Twain said about statistics.Stats are great for agents sportscasters radio talkshow hosts but Tradtition is easy to measure when you have it.