Dan Wetzel (who will remain eternally on my shit list for quoting from a blog post of mine without attribution) has a great new suggestion for stirring up the playoff debate: more Obama.
… Yet there is a simple, symbolic and time efficient way for Obama to make a statement against the exclusion and confusion of the Bowl Championship Series. When it comes time to invite the winner of Thursday’s BCS championship game – either Alabama or Texas – for the traditional trip to the White House, he can ask for the 14-0 Boise State Broncos to come also.
Wow. It could be a teachable moment like Beerfest all over again!
I wonder what Wetzel would have to say if Chris Petersen politely declined the invite.
Meanwhile, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff reminds us about what really underlies the debate.
… Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said, “They’re elitists. They think they’re above it all. And if teams do well enough and go undefeated like Utah did last year and TCU and Boise State has done now two years in a row we may let you play for the table scraps. And it really is table scraps when you see the hundreds of millions of dollars that go out to all the conferences all the schools in the preferred conferences and how little bit the non-preferred schools get.”
Shurtleff is going to submit their findings to the department of justice in hopes they’ll take up the case, but he says Utah is also prepared to go it alone.
He says the case is about more than football. He says it’s also about the hundreds of millions of dollars that’s being denied some taxpayer run schools.
Lots of money in tough times is a recipe for government meddling. Be careful what you wish for, playoff proponents.
Get The Picture 
The BCS can take the wind out of the Utah Attorney General’s sails by simply letting the Mountain West into the BCS and I predict they will.
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Yeah. I think they will too.
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Especially if the rumored Boise State defection occurs.
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“Be careful what you wish for, playoff proponents.”
Not that you are suggesting this, Senator, but wishing to see the demise of the BCS via lawsuits and politics is not necessarily the position of playoff advocates. And being a proponent of the “bowl system” (whatever that was or now is) surely does not make one a defender of the BCS…an acronym with one letter too many in the middle. The BCS is ONLY about the $$$ and not finding fairness in a poll-driven or on-field determination of the national champion. Whatever wrath that rains down on the Lords of the BCS is entirely their own fault. Hopefully, in our lifetime, a more common sense solution prevails that probably resembles all teams aligned into several conferences with 2 divisions each, conference championships and end of season playoff. Just too hard to see how we can “go back” to the “spirit” of the old bowl system that never solved the problems (of $$$ and crowning a champion) either.
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Well said.
Not everyone that objects to the current system is of the mindset/political belief that government is any part of the solution to the problem.
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The BCS is certainly about money. But it is also about matching up #1 vs. #2 to determine a national champion. And they tend to get it right. The fans’ objections to the BCS come because they want to include numbers 3 & 4, up to 32 in some cases.
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any proposal of opening up the BCS that doesn’t involve schools like UGA writing great big checks to schools like Utah just to be “fair”. If the increased possibility of winning a national championship through an expanded playoff down the road is going to cost UGA $1 million per year, then I would rather keep the money and let Boise State have the glory.
As the investing saw goes, I’d rather be rich than right.
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I’ll give you that the B*S PR is about matching #1 vs. #2, but that’s not the objective reality. Purely subjective as long as it relys on the polls and computers. Please…tell it to BSU this year, Auburn, Texas and even UGA in prior years that the “best” 2 teams squared off.
And a playoff format does not mean UGA directly writes a check, but yes, you probably have to distribute the TV money more equitably…that’s a bad thing? (The more you win, the more you still get.) But to be clear, I think an entirely new system of fewer FBS teams (96) , conference alignments (8) and no B*S committee with polls would be required to make it “work”.
I advocate the death of the B*S and polls, but don’t see this happening anytime soon. Tweaks to the current system just seem fruitless.
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Money may not be the root of all evil, but it really is the only thing driving the debate. Not many really care who the best is or really want a playoff as much as they want a slice of the pie. Division II, III, etc. schools have playoffs, but don’t make any money with it, and that is the only reason there is no fussing. If the money was equally divided among the 119 or so D-1 schools and the participants only got travel expenses and gifts for the players in addition to their pro rata share of the money, this would all go away. It’ll never happen, but it would end the debate.
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Yup – that would end the whining about fair competition. Then people could whine about Toledo, New Mexico State, and all the schools who don’t generate any revenue for the sport getting the same share of the pie as Ohio State, Florida, and schools that actually do bring in the money.
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Kinda like how Northwestern, Baylor, Duke, and Vanderbilt live, eh?
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Kinda, but I don’t hear any of them whining about not having a shot at the title.
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I wouldn’t include Northwestern in that group. For the past 10 or so years they have fielded a pretty decent football product.
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