Congress investigating the BCS

I read tonight on ESPN.com that Congress is investigating the way schools are chosen to determine the national championship in college football. The BCS has been in existence for about ten years, probably not quite that long, and a combination of polls, computer rankings, and astrology readings are put together to determine the matchups to the four biggest college bowl games each year. Furthermore, whoever ends up ranked by their system 1 and 2 gets to go to the championship game.

Now there are plenty of flaws with this system. This year it has worked well, since there are two deserving teams and two slots in the championship game. But if there is only one, or if there is more than two, then the system leads to great debate. As it did last year, when an undefeated Auburn team was left out of the championship game so that the two other major unbeatens could play. My personal favorite was two years ago, when a series of unlikely outcomes conspired so that the team ranked number one in both major human polls - USC - was ranked third in the BCS and didn't get to play for the national championship, which pitted LSU versus Oklahoma. (And for the record, LSU is the only national champion worth recognizing for that season. All the teams agreed up front that the national champion would be the winner of the national championship game. So all this talk of a potential three-peat for SC is hooey unless they win another fifteen games in a row.)

So do not set me up as a big defender of the BCS. I am certainly not that. The problem is simple - anytime there is not two clear-cut candidates for the championship game - there will be bitching and moaning. And everytime there is not eight clear cut candidates for the four major bowls, there will be further bitching and moaning. Quite frankly, I don't much care about that.

But what on earth is Congress doing investigating this? In less than two weeks, they will likely be adopting a budget which means that more children than ever in our history will be living in poverty, that more children than ever in our history will have no health insurance, in which tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans will be perpetuated. In case nobody else noticed, we are at war. An unjust war, indefensible by Christian standards, but a war nonetheless. We have a Supreme Court with one justice less than it needs. We found out last week that we may have executed a San Antonio man eight years ago innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted. We have an administration that distorted - if not outright lied - about the contents of intelligence information so that we would go to war in the first place.

To me, it seems like Congress has a pretty full plate this month. But they have time to grandstand about the BCS. Now we can all sleep well.

Any Congressperson who so much as shows up to this hearing should be defeated next year for wasting his or her time when there were real issues needing to be debated that could improve the lives of Americans.