This week....barely making any notice in the papers after bin Laden and various four-star news....there's this one piece....the federal government sent a letter to the BCS bowl boys, and asked directly why no play-off situation is utilized.
Naturally, the head guy of the BCS bowl boys responded in an direct manner....why would the federal government care?
For anybody from Bama.....this is a sore topic of sorts. On any given day in November....at least one out of every five Bama guys is openly talking about the bowl selection process and this ranks in the top three topics of the day.
This federal letter came from the Justice Department, and hints of antitrust laws. The problem for the BCS folks....is that almost every other sport within college sports.....allows for some kind of play-off situation. The Justice Department is likely moving toward a confrontation.
The problem here is that you've got 34 bowl games now organized, and another two about to be created (the Cure Bowl out in Orlando, FL and the Christmas Bowl out in LA).
This was real simple back when there were ten bowls (up until 1970). Then folks started to add various bowls and confuse folks. Today, you have very marginal teams which get invited to play in the Music City Bowl (in Nashville of course).
You've got thirty-four cities which have a money-maker and know precisely about profits and the influence of forty thousand folks arriving from five states away to play in some half-ass marginal Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana. None of these thirty-four cities want the federal government involved in this mess. In their mind....it's bad enough as it exists right now.
A playoff system? You could have some #3-ranked Bama team in the first round....meeting up in San Diego against a #8-ranked team.....and getting beat in the first round. You could actually end up with the #3-ranked team playing the #12-ranked team for the national championship. The comical thing is that you'd spread this out over six weeks.....going from early December to almost the third-week of January to ensure some fairness to the mess, and toss in various potential injuries to just screw this up more.
The heart of this matter is that you can draw up a list of winners from the twenty colleges in America....and typically, it's two of the twenty that always appear. I admit in the past five years.....Boise State has kinda shocked folks and they really are in a huff about not getting to the number one ranking. I would imagine part of this discussion centers entirely on Boise State.
The sad thing is that if you take away this mess.....take away the Monday morning rankings appearing in USA Today and the local news....what would guys have to talk about for twelve weeks in the fall? For some folks....this ranking business (while fairly fake) is their life and passion. Guys exist in Gainesville and Huntsville to objectively discuss rankings and how one bad play led to their team being dumped from #16 and lodged to #20. Suddenly, they speak of their chances of going to Gator Bowl as ten percent, and now they try to have some positive words to say over their chances of going to the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl.
For some reason....I kinda see this Justice Department involvement as being something of a double-edged sword. There's probably a pair of young rookie lawyers working for the Justice Department who've been given this task....and I can imagine this odd discovery at some point in the process....both rookie lawyers grew up in Boise, and attended Boise State University. Yes, it would be an odd thing.....if you ponder upon it a while. What are the odds?
