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Lawmakers launch PAC to push for college football playoff

By Walter Alarkon - 10/19/09 12:12 PM ET

A bipartisan group of lawmakers fed up with the lack of a college football playoff have formed their own political action committee, Playoff PAC.

The group includes Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), who have all railed against the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system that makes it all-but-impossible for small schools to win a national championship.

Abercrombie and Hatch have home-state interests in seeing a playoff system. The University of Hawaii, University of Utah and Brigham Young University are perennial contenders to go undefeated in a season, but, because they don't play in one of the major conferences, they're never mentioned as possible national champions in college football's top flight.

Abercrombie blasted as "arbitrary" and "anti-competitive" the most recent BCS rankings, which had only one small school, No. 4 Boise State University, in the Top 10.



"The BCS process continues to operate like an exclusive country club rather than a true play-off system," Abercrombie said.

President Obama last fall also backed a playoff system to decide a winner when several teams have the same record at the end of the season. But former college football stars who also served in Congress have defended the current system.

Source:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/63681-lawmakers-launch-pac-to-push-for-college-football-playoff
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Comments (7)

now that the congress has solved the health care issue, the budget deficit, unemployment, Afganistan, etc., it's nice to see them working on some major issue…BY joe biden on 10/19/2009 at 15:07
Why can't Congress work on more than one issue at a time? Nobody is suggesting that they drop every other issue and focus exclusively on football. Everybody knows that football isn't the most important thing in the world, but it is very important to a lot of people and deserves a small portion of Congress' time.BY Joe Blows on 10/19/2009 at 17:29
At the risk of angering college football fans,I have to say this: DON'T WE HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THING TO DO!!??!!?? The answer is, Yes. HOWEVER, if we can get Congress to fixate on college football playoffs, maybe, just maybe, they'll forget about their awful Healthcare Destruction Bill and their "Cap Tax even though the environment is fine" Bill. GOD Forbid any liberal actually sees the truth and corrects themselves, afterall (a bit of sarcasm there). Oh well… so much for fair representation and FREEDOM!BY Tony on 10/19/2009 at 19:08
Only one school with a smaller pool of athletes, less money and a comparative lack of historical tradition is in the top 10? Color me unsurprised.I'd wait if I were them. Boise has a quite real chance of playing for the national title this year, which wouldn't exactly help the playoffs cause. Boise also would probably get mauled ten ways from Sunday by the Gators, Tide or Longhorns which would be doubly embarrassing.Now, if USC jumps Boise in the rankings they'll have something to work with. As deserved as such may well be.BY Sarcastro on 10/19/2009 at 19:15
On the BCS guiding committee, each BCS conference gets one representative; the five non-BCS conferences get one rep between them; and Notre Dame gets a rep. So ND gets about 12 times the representation of other BCS schools, and about 60 times the representation of a non-BCS school. For a school that has won one bowl game in the last 16 years, last January against a Hawaii team that wouldn't have been invited to a bowl game if they didn't throw their own.Want to cure the BCS? Stop treating Notre Dame like a special case.BY Laszlo Panaflex on 10/19/2009 at 23:09
Unless these Representatives actually introduce legislation, this is nothing more than a hissy fit that might raise money, but won't result in any actual change to the BCS system, as, thankfully, this is NOT a major issue to most people…How about successful Congressional action on real issues before wasting institutional time on whining about the BCS?BY KingCranky on 10/20/2009 at 01:23
Wow, I am ecstatic that Congress is finally doing something meaningful for us. Come on you overpaid career politicians, focus on something besides college football. I don't necessarily like the current system but it is not something that Congress should be worried about right now or any time. Their forays into sports is a complete waste of time on their part. I don't think that they should be investigating steroid use or anything else. That is not their damn job. Of course, they are not doing the job that we sent them there to do and trying to change the college football system of determining a national champion will certainly buy some votes for Congressmen and Senators from states like Utah, Hawaii and Texas. This is another reason that we need term limits on all elected officials.BY Bob on 10/20/2009 at 11:13

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