I think Congress has better things to do
Let's see: renewing the Patriot Act, the Senate needing to confirm Bush's judicial nominees, as well as a Supreme Court nominee, et cetera, et cetera. So what do they turn their attention to? Why, the Bowl Championship Series, of course. Pay attention, because this is likely one of the few political issues Lawson and I will agree on: Representative Barton, you're wasting your time, your colleagues' time, the time of BCS board members, and taxpayer dollars. Congress has no business sticking its nose in to the BCS mess. I wouldn't go as far as Barton in saying the BCS is "deeply flawed," though it has made some whoppers in the past few years: picking Oklahoma over USC to face LSU in 2003, and picking Oklahoma over Auburn to face USC in 2004 immediately spring to mind. The solution to the problems of the BCS is not a Congressional investigation. Rather, the football bigwigs at the NCAA need to get together with the various bowl organizers and sponsors and develop a playoff system for Division I-A football where the championship game will be rotated among the bigger bowls. As the ESPN article notes, there's a lot of money in the bowl games, particularly the BCS bowls, and a playoff system would theoretically kill off some of those dollars. I don't believe that would happen; look at March Madness with NCAA Division I-A basketball. Nevertheless, the overriding issue is money. If it wasn't, then the cadets and midshipmen wouldn't be crammed into the corners of the stadium for the annual Army-Navy game, but would be seated, out of respect, directly behind their teams' benches. (We wouldn't see that awful swoosh logo on those classically minimalist uniforms, either.) Until the NCAA and the bowls figure out a way to not lose money, we won't see the much-needed playoff system--for the only sport in Division I-A without a playoff system--for college football, and we will continue to have controversy over whom should play for the championship, and which team is truly number one.