Hold that line!

It’s been awhile since Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch kicked off in the grudge match against the Bowl Championship Series, but the BCS has finally mounted an offense, albeit with an old-fashioned single wing formation.

In a long letter sent yesterday to Hatch and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock relied on an economic argument for keeping the current system of choosing a national college football champion. (Read about it here.)
The BCS has generated money for all conferences, including those inferior ones who don’t get automatic births in a meaningful bowl game.
“For example, if the University of Utah qualifies for a BCS game in the 2010-11 season, it will earn for its conference approximately $24.7 million which, under the agreement among the Mountain West and the other four non-AQ (automatic qualifying) conferences, would then be divided among the five conferences,” wrote Hancock. “The Mountain West certainly could keep all $24.7 million within the conference, or Utah could keep it all. The decision to share the revenue — and how to allocate it — was made, not by the full group of 11 BCS conferences, or by the six conferences that have earned annual automatic qualification, but by the five non-AQ conferences.”
In fact, he wrote, without the BCS system, Utah’s magnificent team in 2008 would have played in the Las Vegas bowl, not the Allstate Sugar Bowl.
That’s it? That’s the offense?
Hancock is missing the point, and he’s hoping everyone else does, too. There was no BCS system in 1984, and so BYU was forced to play in the Holiday Bowl. However, BYU was chosen national champion that year. Utah may have cracked the BCS in ’08, but it had no chance to be national champion.
Ask players and fans which they would prefer – a minor bowl game that leads to a national title or a big game the team wins and yet leaves them frustrated. They would probably choose a third way – a true playoff system.
I’m one who thinks Congress has no business involving itself in college football. But this system, which is all about a lot of money for the very few, isn’t about to budge on its own. It may have a flimsy offense, but the BCS is great at protecting the ball.