President Bush used the bully pulpit to shine a spotlight on steroid use in baseball. Not to be outdone, Barack Obama has his eyes on reforming sports, too.
He wants to eliminate college football’s flawed BCS system, which is designed to choose the best college team in the land.
BCYes, we can.
Sure, there are more pressing matters in the world that we could be discussing. But if no less of a man than President-elect Obama thinks the BCS system is worthy of a good, robust debate, who are we to disagree?
For those of you who spend your autumn Saturdays doing something more productive than watching college football, BCS stands for Bowl Championship Series. It’s a matrix of polls and computer ratings that eventually picks the two teams that play for the national championship.
But a decade into the BCS, controversy still simmers over whether the two best teams are playing for the title. Schools with perfect records, such as Utah this year, and those with as many wins and losses as those teams in the title game are often left at home to watch the big game on TV.
Twice in recent weeks, Obama has said he favors creating a playoff system where eight teams would play over three rounds to crown a national champion. “It would add three extra weeks to the season,” he said in an interview. “You could trim back on the regular season. I don’t know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I’m going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it’s the right thing to do.”
The NCAA has been fighting such a playoff and, really, this is their decision to make, regard- less of Obama’s weight-throw- ing. But we think the answer is the much simpler “plus 1” system. Allow the No. 1-seeded BCS team to play the No. 4-seeded team, and the No. 2 to play the No. 3 in a pair of bowl games. The two winners would play for the national championship.
The bowl system stays intact, and the host cities continue to make money. And, quite possibly, the NCAA would crown the real champion.
Now, back to discussing the world’s other problems.
