We’re about to be subjected to a bunch of March Madness vs. BCS punditry over the next few weeks.
An early example comes from the Mobile Press-Register’s Tommy Hicks. But after reading this…
In truth, there a touch of madness — both good and bad — to both national championship-determining methods. Both sports could learn something and should take a little something from the other. Basketball has the office bracket pool and the interest that creates with even the casual fan, and football has its “every game matters” persona.
… let’s just say I’m underwhelmed.
On a related front, Brian McCormack has a great post up at his blog concerning the Mountain West’s quixotic quest for a permanent seat at the BCS table. His main point – that the conference needs to walk (i.e., have a credible income-producing TV contract) before it can run – is hard to argue with. Of course, that may mean selling its soul to Disney.
Brian sarcastically offers our Congressional geniuses a way to fix the MWC’s problem.
… If Congress wants to get involved and regulate college football they might want to start with assuring equal television exposure. Yes, a return era to the equal time. Organize the Fall sports schedule towards make sure that we get to see Wyoming, Troy, and FIU in prime time. While we are nationalizing the banks, maybe we can nationalize cable TV. And start by moving the masters of Bristol to the shores of the Potomac.
I find it’s never wise to give those folks any bright ideas, personally.
Oh, and I would be remiss if I failed to mention that the Orlando Sentinel’s Tim Stephens still believes in the playoff fairy bringing lots of money to put under universities’ pillows.
… Nowhere is the separation between have and have-not in college football more evident than in coaches salaries. We’ve seen egos drive facilities upgrades and head coaches salaries. Now it is fueling bidding wars for assistant coaches. South Carolina this week approved $2 million for assistant salaries for 2009, including a $250,000-a-year salary for its offensive line coach. That’s more than the base salaries for seven Division I-A head coaches. And it’s not even one of the higher salaries for SEC assistants.
You probably can guess correctly that the head coaches are in the MAC and Sun Belt. When you get to the coordinator level in leagues like the SEC, you start passing head-coach salaries in the Mountain West, WAC and C-USA.
As Machen said, bailout could be spelled p-l-a-y-o-f-f, which is why Congress might be a fitting place to forge college football’s future…
Right. Because SEC schools can be counted on to share their TV revenues with a host of conferences that don’t draw a third of the attention. Actually, that probably does make sense to some members of Congress. Sheesh.
Get The Picture 
I will say this, reading your blog about anything relating to the BCS vs. March Madness is about as intriguing as hearing what Limbaugh has to say about Obama.
It’s done, over, your mind is made up and no one is gonna change it.
We get it Senator.
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One could say the same about your comments on the subject. 😉
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Not exactly. I’m not for the football march madness by any means.
But if you are not happy with something and believe it can be done better, I like making a move.
Generally speaking, those who don’t make moves in such situations, don’t amount to much in real life.
I’m just joking with you a little. But it is pretty much a one note song and dance at this point for you.
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The status quo is always better than doing the wrong thing.
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Maybe so, but how many times do you have to say it?
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I don’t know. I guess it depends on how many times I feel the need to react to stupid comments/proposals on the matter.
For example, I have this feeling there’s a doozy of a John Feinstein column being put together as we write. It’ll be hard to lay off that baby.
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