Utah's Orrin Hatch, the ranking member of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, has scheduled a hearing Tuesday to examine antitrust violations by the Bowl Championship Series, a multi-billion dollar industry that attempts to exclude teams from non-BCS leagues in big-money bowl games.
Hatch's quest to bring a playoff system to big-time college football is a Herculean task. Consider comments made by Harvey Perlman, left, the chancellor at the University of Nebraska who was recently appointed as chairman of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee. He was asked by Husker Locker why a playoff is not a viable alternative. Here is Perlman's response:
"It would diminish the bowl structure and it would reduce the number of opportunities for student-athletes to play in the postseason and that's not a good thing. If you look at college football now, it’s the greatest sporting event spread over September, October, November, December and a little bit of January that the country has. A playoff would seriously diminish the regular season, as it has in college basketball.
"I don't think it's good for college football, I don't think it's good for student-athletes and I don't think it's good for fans. I don't see fans traveling around the country three weeks in succession between December and January following their team. So you're either going to have to play at home sites – which I'm sure everybody will want to play in Nebraska in December and January — or you're gonna have to travel, which means that bowls will cease being intercollegiate events, but will become corporate events, where everybody in, you name the city, will be there except the fans of the teams.
"This isn't basketball. This isn't March Madness. Football's a different game, different environment. We have different traditions. It's hard to see why a playoff is good idea."
We ran Perlman's quotes through our recently acquired B.S. detector and this is what he actual said: "Yes, a playoff format works in all other levels of college football and March Madness makes tons of money, but what other system allows 50% of the teams to keep 98% of the profits?"
If those teams in the 50% actually account for 98% of the profits, why not let them keep 98% of the profits? Remind me how much money the WAC brings in again? Yeah, thought so.
Posted by: Tom | July 01, 2009 at 01:32 PM
The Wiz says if the BCS teams want to keep all the money, then man up and schedule nonconference games against each other and exclude the teams they don't want invited to the BCS party to begin with.
Posted by: The Wiz | July 01, 2009 at 02:38 PM
Yup, that'd work. But if that were the case, why would anybody pay any attention to the Sun Belt, MAC, etc?
Another (reasonable and realistic) way would be to mandate that games against I-AA cupcakes don't count towards bowl games. That would be sweet.
Posted by: Tom | July 01, 2009 at 03:26 PM
I agree with the Nebraska AD, regional playoff games would not work with only a week to set up travel times, so that means the games would be played at home teams stadiums and we're back talking about how the system is unfair.
The college bowl system isn't perfect, but it's much more exciting and rewarding than the NFL playoffs.
Posted by: T-Bone | July 01, 2009 at 07:19 PM
The problem is, Harvey is right to a degree.
Nebraska hasn't been able to ever schedule Miami for a home-and-home until their recent downtrodden state because Miami feared playing in winter weather--something that is a distinct possibility for September in Nebraska.
If you tell a team from either of the coasts or the South that they would have to go to Nebraska in January or February to win the NC, they would likely forfeit the game. Throw in teams like Boise State, Wisconsin, etc. into the mix, and you're giving the teams in the Northern part of the USA a distinct advantage.
And anything that nullifies the recruiting advantage that the coasts and Texas have over other teams will happen over their dead, overly-tanned, drunk coed bodies.
Posted by: Matt | July 02, 2009 at 06:36 AM
In the immortal words of Gen. Montgomery: "This is pure poppycock."
Posted by: Texdawg | July 02, 2009 at 08:08 AM
Hey Sen. Hatch, do you have any ideas on how to improve the economy so the thousands, if not millions, of people in this country who have lost their jobs can go back to work? ... I didn't think so. ... You're too busy with more important issues, like trying to find a way for New Mexico's football team to play in a bowl game sponsored by chip company. Yet another exmaple of the government wasting the taxpayer's money. Until Sen. Hatch saves some jobs, then I say the hell with talking about college football in the senate.
Posted by: spreadoption | July 04, 2009 at 11:36 AM