House Subcommitee OKs College Football Playoff Bill
One PO dies and another finds new life. Sure the public option is effectively dead in the Senate, but a House subcommittee has passed a bill calling for a playoff to replace the entrenched and utterly pathetic BCS system to determine national champion in college football.
Seriously, this happened.
From ESPN:
The bill, which faces steep odds, would ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision game as a national championship unless it results from a playoff. The measure passed by voice vote in a House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee, with one audible “no,” from Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga.
Sounds unlikely. But least they don’t require a supermajority in both Houses to pass it.
It’s fitting that the bill’s sponsor, Joe Barton, hails from Texas. The University of Texas, Austin, was bumped from the title game last year by Oklahoma, despite having the same record and a win over OU. This year UT is going to the championship over Texas Christian University, despite both programs being undefeated and TCU coming off the more dominant season. Truly, the BCS is a broken system wobbling on the crutches of dollar signs and entrenched interests. In other words, it is the most quintessentially American system we could possibly have.
Oh, and I love this detail:
“With all due respect, I really think we have more important things to spend our time on,” Barrow said before the vote, although he stressed he didn’t like the current Bowl Championship Series, either.
The only audible “no” in the voice vote actually agrees with the legislation! And once again, political optics come between what is right and what is feasible in Congress. A nation hangs its head.
TheAltantic.com
12/10/9
