Comments on: Congress: Leave college football alone

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:35:42 +0000

So, Tony, you’re admitting that global warming is real?!

By: OldDawgFan

OldDawgFan — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:10:09 +0000

Just to make the arguement for or against the bowl system for football understandable to all, will you show us how the basketball season would have ended if the teams were handled like the football bowls instead of the great, exciting NCAA March Madness? Remember Duke won the ACC and Mississippi State won the SEC. That would put Miss. St. in the “Sugar Bowl” as one of the best teams in the country. You get the idea.

By: Spanky

Spanky — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:11:11 +0000

Funny, you deride Congress for not knowing if a football is “inflated or stuffed”, yet you have no qualms about commenting how legistlation should be handled.

By: doug

doug — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:33:09 +0000

Well put Tony. I hate the BCS format but I hate the Congress far more.
Hatch has a habit of sticking his stinking hands in other sports too. Baseball for one, during the strike years ago. I would rather see the BCS run the show than the new “Socialist Regime in Washington” eventually screw it up. Keep you filthy hands off our game. At least we are in the Black.

By: Marble Rye

Marble Rye — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:09:41 +0000

The BCS is better than the previous ways to determine a NC because it pits No. 1 versus No. 2. However that’s where it ends. It doesn’t care if either won their conference. It doesn’t care about the other BCS bowl matchups – that’s up to the bowls themselves which means it’s all about money and ratings and sexiness and not about pitting the best remaining teams against one another. It’s a five-foot stack of frosting with a quarter-inch of cake in the middle.

I view the BCS the way I view AIDS in a clinical sense. Like AIDS, it’s not the syndrome itself that kills but it’s the spinoff diseases (pneumonia, cancer) that kills. The Bowl Contract Syndrome is the same thing – it’s the surrounding fallout outside of No. 1 v. No. 2 that’s a cancer to college football because it prevents a better way to determine a national champion. It’s a colorless, tasteless, odorless intangible that is CFB’s silent killer. All the BCS is at its core is a mere piece of paper (a contract).

Congress won’t do squat in terms of eliminating the BCS and forging a playoff. The only entity that can make something like that happen is whatever massive sports network that is tied to the BCS. Now it’s FOX, next year it’s ESPN. It’s really up to these media giants.

Soapbox moment over. Here’s my playoff pitch…

1. End of regular season/conference championship games, take all 11 FBS conference champs plus the top independent (12 total teams) and seed them according to post-regular season BCS standings (so polls do matter).

*KEY: ONLY conference champs and top indie allowed. If you don’t win your conference, you’re not in the playoff. There are plenty of other good bowls out there for you.

2. First four seeds get a first-round bye.

3. Remaining 8 teams play in a Qualifying (first) Round. The lower-seeded conference champs/top independent host the higher-seeded ones on their home field.

4. Winners of the Q-Round go on to play the first-four seeded teams in the “BCS” round in the Rose, Orange, Fiesta and Sugar.

5. Those winners (4) play in a Football FInal Four in The Cotton Bowl (which ideally is the fifth BCS Bowl). One venue, two games. One afternoon, the other that night.

6. The two winners to on to play for the National Title in the first BCS bowl that was played from item #4 above.

All five BCS bowls rotate venues similar to today – one of them also gets the National Title game and another gets only the Final Four.

By: Stupid, but dangerous? « Get The Picture

Stupid, but dangerous? « Get The Picture — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:19:10 +0000

[...] if you read Tony Barnhart’s post on the subject yesterday, he makes a good point about antitrust and the [...]

By: tiger7_88

tiger7_88 — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:23:39 +0000

Barnhart, if we could only distract those idiots in Congress with even MORE issues of little consequence, maybe we’d be able to keep more of our hard-earned money.

By: H1022

H1022 — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:50:29 +0000

Einstein is right. At the end of the regular season AP writers vote for number 1 and that’s it. Then we can argue winter, spring and summer. It was this way for a long time and it worked well: stadia were full and college football ruled.
As a Gator, I would take a win over UGA, FSU and Miami over a National Championship.

By: Douglas

Douglas — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:37:11 +0000

Well, I do think congress needs to investigate why the NCAA plays favorites because we are talking about a lot of money to be made here. For instance: Reggie Bush’s family definitely received money from someone who hoped to be their agent yet has the NCAA taken any action? Similarly, USC basketball player O.J. Mayo received benefits while in school, yet has the NCAA punished USC? On the other hand, they punish FSU who deserved it while looking the other way for USC?

By: Douglas

Douglas — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:32:14 +0000

testing