Obama Wants Playoffs

Five minutes with Fiesta Bowl President and Chief Executive Officer John Junker on the 2009-10 college football season:

It seems like every year a state lawmaker challenges the BCS and threatens government intervention. What’s your reaction to this?

“I heard (Oklahoma coach) Bob Stoops do an interview with Dan Patrick a few days ago. Now Coach Stoops would be the first to tell you this system isn’t perfect, but it’s really good in that college football never has been more popular. It’s tremendously healthy. When we begin legislating based on the fact that there’s only one method to arrive at a champion, which is a bracketed playoff, my answer is this isn’t basketball and it’s not the NFL. A lot of very capable, bright, motivated people have worked very hard at this, and this is a marketplace solution.”

The BCS.

It’s waiting out there, determined to ruin your season because of its very makeup. It’s the ultimate wet blanket.

Unless you’re a college president or a bowl executive, you hate the BCS and all that it stands for. You want a playoff, sooner rather than later.

Obama is pro-playoff. The wide majority of fans have been screaming for a playoff for years. Some members of Congress are starting to see the light.

Know what? You’re not getting a playoff. Not sooner, maybe not later.

The BCS isn’t going anywhere. And if we can’t get rid of the darn thing, at least we can fine-tune it so it’s a little more palatable and might actually come closer to assuring the two most deserving teams in the country play for the national championship on Jan. 6, 2010.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090830/COLUMNIST0202/908300357

The college football season is a mere 10 days away, even less depending upon your team of choice.

As opposed to those of you who would like to see the BCS disappear by means of lethal injection – some e-mailers get so overheated I think they would prefer it suffer a more painful demise – I simply want to rehabilitate it.

Although none of these fixes would satisfy those who lust for a lengthy 16-team playoff (preceded, of course, by a substantially less intriguing regular season), here are the five changes I would make to the BCS to create a more palatable system for all.

1.   In with the Mountain West. Out with the Big East
2.   Conference champions only, please
3.   Bring back New Year’s Day Madness
4.   Take the gloves off the computers
5.   Put some meaning in the nonchampionship bowls

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/colleges/preview/football/stories/082609dnspocowlishawcol.4011369.html

1. Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis – Weis’ arrogance was somewhat forgivable in 2005 and 2006, when he led Notre Dame to BCS bowls, but his act has grown tired. He has rubbed people the wrong way both in South Bend and beyond, and there will be quite a contingent rooting against the Irish this fall.

2. Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin – Children act out to get attention, and Kiffin certainly has gotten it since he took over in Knoxville. Putting Tennessee in the national spotlight could pay off for Kiffin in the long run, but his SEC colleagues are lining up to embarrass the overmatched Vols this fall.

3. Alabama head coach Nick Saban – He won’t win any Mr. Congeniality contests, and he hasn’t made the smoothest exits from Michigan State, LSU and the Miami Dolphins. But Saban wins games, and as long as he keeps things up, he’ll be loved in Alabama.

4. The BCS – The stock market had a better year than the BCS, which rankles a large majority of fans who want a playoff system in college football. Sure, the regular season generates plenty of excitement, but we seek clarity in sports and the BCS rarely provides it.

5. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany – I enjoy my regular dealings with Delany, but he’s not a popular man among college football fans, even those from the Big Ten. The BCS backer is viewed as a main obstacle to a playoff system, and his reluctance to add a 12th team to the Big Ten turns off many fans of his league.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/bigten/0-3-868/Top-five-villains-in-college-football.html

WASHINGTON — Rep. Joe Barton had a plane to catch, but he wanted to give college football officials a warning before leaving the highly publicized hearing.

Peering down from the podium, the Republican said in his Texas twang that unless the officials took action toward a playoff system in two months, Congress would likely move on his legislation aimed at forcing their hand.

More than three months have passed, and Barton’s bill hasn’t moved. Such is the way with college football and Congress.

For years, lawmakers have railed against the Bowl Championship Series, calling it an unfair way to select a national champion. A lot of righteous thundering, however, has not yielded anything on the legislative front.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/12057629

David Schoenfield: OK, let’s get this out of the way: A playoff system isn’t going to happen. We know most fans want one, but you may as well dream about Lane Kiffin and Urban Meyer spending a week together on Marco Island. So the real debate here is whether the current BCS system is better than the old bowl system, when conference winners all had automatic bowl tie-ins.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill_schoenfield/090806&sportCat=ncfAu

Utah’s spectacular undefeated 2008 season, which led to the school’s having no chance to claim the national title that Florida won, set a congressional record by forcing two off-season hearings on Capitol Hill.

It spurred a new preseason prognostication category: school from outside the six power conferences most likely to force an antitrust investigation called by a political representative/opportunist who seeks justice, a playoff and the chance to sing his school’s fight song on C-SPAN.

This year’s candidates:

Not everyone with Big Ten ties wants to keep college football’s postseason status quo.

Former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr said Friday that he’d like to see four teams advance to the bowl season with a chance to win a national championship. Carr advocated a sort of bracketed plus-one system, with the winners of two semifinal bowls advancing to a national championship game.

http://www.sportingnews.com/college-football/article/2009-07-31/lloyd-carr-advocates-four-team-playoff

President Barack Obama, fans and posturing lawmakers have an attractive pawn piece in their argument for a college football playoff.

It could make gobs of money. Some experts and analysts agree that a four- or eight-team format could produce $100 million in extra revenue — and perhaps much more — each year from television, sponsorship and ticket sales.

If only it was that easy.

The playoff debate is hardly new, but it takes on a different dynamic with the economy in shambles and state universities across the country facing enormous budget cuts while heavily subsidizing their athletic programs.

Money talks. But much of the playoff talk is burdened by potential sacrifices to regular-season and bowl-game revenue that would make major conferences cringe.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/college/orl-sportseconomics31073109jul31,0,3512715.story