The federal government's opposition to the Bowl Championship Series is well established: President Obama favors a college football playoff, and last week a member of Congress compared the BCS to Communism. And now the attorney general of Utah is saying that if the feds don't go after the BCS, he will.
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says that he plans to take the BCS to court. Utah television station KUTV reports:
"It doesn't matter what Congress does, we're going forward, and we will sue," Shurtleff said. ... The next step is to talk to the Department of Justice, and see if they will lead on this suit."Obviously, Shurtleff is motivated by the fact that Utah was shut out of the BCS championship game after finishing the 2008 season undefeated. And obviously, he's hoping to curry favor with his Ute fan constituents.
But I have a feeling quite a few of those constituents won't be so favorably inclined toward Shurtleff when they realize that Shurtleff is planning to spend a whole lot of their money on this issue. Shurtleff says he is willing to spend millions of dollars on this lawsuit if the Justice Department doesn't, claiming that a college football playoff is valuable enough to the state of Utah that it would be worth it in the long run.
I'm with Shurtleff in his calls for a playoff. I just think figuring out how to run the college football postseason is up to the NCAA and the individual schools, and not up to the attorney general of Utah.
More at College Football Talk.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-07-2009 @ 6:28PM
George said...
Give me a break,all the Utes did was beat an overrated 'bama team with a lucky 21 points in the first quarter and a whopping 33 yards rushing in the entire game. Utah wasn't even a top 10 team,quit your whining.
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5-07-2009 @ 9:35PM
mmusclemadness said...
I'm not saying that the present system is right, but can't we keep congress out of something?
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5-08-2009 @ 1:39PM
kushner6 said...
Having a playoff will not solve the problem; there will always be teams left out that were, in their eyes, worthy of being selected. The best way for Utah or any other team to prove it deserves to be considered is to schedule a power or two during the season. Had Utah defeated a USC, Ohio State or Alabama during the season it would have opened eyes during the selection process. When your conference is deemed to lack the strength of an SEC or Big 12, you need to go outside of it to prove you deserve to be considered among the best. It is possible that Utah was deserving of a shot at the national championship game, but, as in boxing, to get a shot at the title you have to go through the top contenders to show you are worthy.
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5-10-2009 @ 8:05AM
Ken said...
You say that if Utah had played an SEC or some other BCS power team, they would have been given more consideration by the BCS in regards to the national championship. I disagree with that assertion because:
1. Most of those schools (especially the SEC) will not play a non-BCS school that they feel can beat them, which in turn gives credence to the notion that non-BCS schools play "weak" schedules. However, I must admit that the Pac-10 played several games this past season against the Mountain West, who was very successful against them.
2. Even if answer #1 was completely false, the non-BCS schools would still be at a disadvantage due to a lack of an automatic bid to the BCS bowls. Because of this lack of inclusion, and also the de facto requirement that a non-BCS school must go undefeated in order to be eligible to play in a BCS bowl, the polls that determine who plays in the BCS title game will never put non-BCS team the position to play for the national championship because those schools, in the pollsters' opinion, lack the respect needed to receive that privilege.
By the way, the reason that Congress is getting involved in the BCS issue is because it involves money, and lots of it. Most people miss the point that NCAA Division 1 college football is a business, where schools complete not only for "the love of game" but also for all the revenue that it generates. With much of that revenue coming from major bowl games and television appearances, schools like Utah are at a competitive disadvantage against the BCS schools because they can never get access to those revenue sources despite investing the same amount of money in their football programs as the power conferences (probably more than schools like Cincinnati and Baylor). This disadvantage cost the non-BCS schools both money and exposure that's needed to attract potential students. When you think about it, the BCS system is an antitrust issue that the government needs to address.