3 State Reps want the BCS investigated by the gov't

[BoJtrueAUman 4]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3351626

[OldNewby 27]

Birdbrains of a feather…

Is the BCS flawed? YES! Do we need Congress to stick their noses in? NO!

[aubiescottie 1]

I used to think that too, that congress doesn't need to stick their noses in it, but I've sense changed my stance a little. I like it when things that directly affect me get fixed.

At the same time, congress needs to make sure people who know what they are talking about are involved. During the recent steroids testimony, half of them couldn't even pronounce names correctly, I mean Mr. Palmeri? Who the hell is that? I mean he [was] a future baseball hall of famer.

Ultimately the problem is the Big Ten, their little bitch the PAC 10, the Rose Bowl and the fact that the Big Ten has never been screwed since the media enjoys shooting money shots all over themselves when talking about those schools so they have no reason to change it.

[Defense(clap clap) 4]

I'd really prefer the govt spend their time and my money on more important issues in the grand scheme of things.

This is ridiculous and pretty insulting to the American taxpayer.

[WinCrimson 61]

What dog does Mike Simpson have in this fight?

I see Abercrombie and Westmoreland, as each of their state's schools were in BCS games this past January. But, Idaho? Seriously? The Vandals?

[Aufan59 168]

What dog does Mike Simpson have in this fight?

I see Abercrombie and Westmoreland, as each of their state's schools were in BCS games this past January. But, Idaho? Seriously? The Vandals?

Boise State?

[BZ770 2]

This is something good coming out of our tax money. One day ESPN might be on trial for racketeering and monopoly charges from their current stronghold on College Football.

[cwalter2 0]

maybe this is something congress can finaly get right... Anything the goverment does gets messed up...

[mowegl 4]

What dog does Mike Simpson have in this fight?

I see Abercrombie and Westmoreland, as each of their state's schools were in BCS games this past January. But, Idaho? Seriously? The Vandals?

Boise State?

Yep. I don't think anyone teaches geography classes at Wincrimson's school.

[TitanTiger 21,147]

Josh Moon had a perfect article on this in Sunday's Montgomery Advertiser:

COMMENTARY: Politicians try to add more mess to BCS

By Josh Moon

I'm thinking of asking my congressman to mow my lawn. Seriously. I want him to drive down from Washington, take one of those old-time, motor-less lawnmowers and shave every blade of grass down to two inches. I then want him to wash my cars, vacuum my house and bathe my dogs. And when he's finished up here, I'm sending him next door.

The way I figure it, at least if he's doing this stuff, I know he's doing something productive with his time.

Because it has become painfully apparent that we can't trust any of the members of Congress to be productive on their own. The minute we change the channel from C-Span, they go off in their own, ridiculous directions.

We've had them waste entire days talking about Rush Limbaugh or an ad in the New York Times. We've seen them waste bunches of days with the steroid issue in Major League Baseball. And now, they're threatening to kill more time arguing about college football's Bowl Championship Series.

Yep, you read that right. With a war ongoing, recession looming and the housing market failing, three members of our U.S. Congress have decided that now is a good time to look into what they believe is a fraudulent system that determines the college football national champion.

I couldn't make this up.

No, really, I couldn't make it up. If I were writing a fiction novel and used these three men as the basis for my fictional characters, no one would believe them. No one would believe that an elected leader, with all that's going on in this country, would waste hours of his life on this ridiculousness.

Unfortunately for all of us, these men -- Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., and Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho -- are very real. Their bill, which was originally created by Abercrombie, would force the U.S. Justice Department to investigate whether the BCS is illegally restricting trade.

To make a long story short, their primary complaint is that the BCS treats teams from small, non-BCS conferences unfairly.

And it only took them 10 years to figure this out.

Hey, don't laugh. That's progress for Congress. It took them a few decades to figure out cigarettes might be bad for you.

Actually, to be perfectly fair, this isn't the first time Congress has looked into the BCS. It's the fourth time a group of congressmen have gone after college football's ridiculous system.

And this is the problem with Congress. Outside of a Kleptomaniacs Anonymous meeting, you can't find a gathering of less trustworthy people. They're so bad we can't even rely on them to waste time properly.

I mean, they've held three previous hearings on the BCS and have nothing to show for it. No legislation. No demand for changes. No penalties. No fines.

Here is a system that's so clearly corrupt, so undeniably fraudulent that me, Andy Griffith and Barney Fife could build an airtight case against it. Yet, after three hearings, an unlimited number of questions and buckets full of wasted tax dollars, Congress got zip.

Solid work as usual, fellas.

There's just no point to Congress doing this again. We all know how it's going to turn out. A few campaigns will receive large donations, the hearings will putter out and we'll not hear anything else until a team gets shafted and its hometown congressman screams "Travesty!" again.

That's all this is -- a publicity stunt. Look where these guys are from -- Georgia (finished a controversial second in the country last year), Hawaii (barely scraped into the Sugar Bowl and was thumped by UGA) and Idaho, home of Boise State (barely slid in a year ago, but beat Oklahoma). You don't think these guys are getting a little home-state push?

All of this is about one thing -- votes. Anything else that might happen is a distant second. As a matter of fact, if we showed any of these congressmen reliable polling data suggesting we, the fans/voters, would be more inclined to vote for them if they shut the colleges down, there would be padlocks on the doors by tomorrow morning.

The point is, we deal with the crooked ways of Congress on a daily basis. We've come to accept the fact that most of them are going to completely sell out no matter what's best for their constituents. It's why assault weapons, cigarettes and alcohol are all legal.

But sports is where most of us turn to get our minds off of that nonsense and to escape the everyday disappointment that they bring us.

How about you guys just leave it alone and let us figure out?

Josh Moon, a sports writer for the Montgomery Advertiser, can be reached at jmoon@gannett.com.

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/p...330/1002/SPORTS

[WinCrimson 61]

What dog does Mike Simpson have in this fight?

I see Abercrombie and Westmoreland, as each of their state's schools were in BCS games this past January. But, Idaho? Seriously? The Vandals?

Boise State?

Yep. I don't think anyone teaches geography classes at Wincrimson's school.

Dear God, that's the brain lapse of the century.

I've been having some real snafus on here as of late.

[kickinwang 0]

lynn westmoreland...part of one of the funniest "colbert report" bits ever.

click it

[aucanucktiger 1,872]

Well cynical comments aside, lets get into some facts.

Fact: most state attorneys general antitrust offices that would look into whether the BCS' is pulling an OPEC on us all (i.e. illegal cartel activities) are NOT paid by the taxpayers, they have their own trust funds that are replenished when their costs/fees are paid by a settling/losing defendant.

Fact: what, do we live in Estonia? This just in, the US has enough governmental and other resources to mulitask (i.e. deal w/ a BCS investigation AND more important issues too).

Fact: if the BCS is illegallly manipulating college football, many colleges (which after all ARE institutions of learning) are probably losing big $ they'd otherwise get

Fact: neither football, nor its governing bodies (or bowl organizers) enjoy an antitrust exemption (unlike baseball)

[SouthLink02 8]

I don't really mind this to be honest

Everyone thought the government should have stayed out of the Steroids issue but I believe that has been a huge positive for MLB as they are forced to do more action, imo

Everyone thought Spector should stay out of the Pats thing but without that support for an explanation, the Walsh issue doesn't become the issue it is today

Now, we have this. I wouldn't mind seeing Congress question the BCS