“After a careful examination of both the written and oral testimonies presented at this hearing, I believe a strong case can be made that the BCS is in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Therefore, I respectfully request that the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division look into this matter,”
(Courtesy http://hatch.senate.gov)
The Sherman Antitrust focuses on preventing cartels and monopolies, and with the track record of the BCS, undefeated teams can win all their games but still not have a chance to play for it all. As we saw this last year as Utah went undefeated but was outside looking in. Again this year we saw it happen again, another undefeated team was left out of the national championship discussion, Boise State. Neither of these teams have the popularity, enriched history or prominence on the college football scene, but both of those could have very easily played it down to the wire - if given the chance.
The system (BCS) as it stands is a series of rankings and ratings, with the sole purpose of putting #1 versus #2. This boils down to a beauty pageant. A beauty pageant which is inherently flawed. And Senator Orrin Hatch is doing his part to resolve this issue.
Imagine for a minute, at the close of the past December 5th, as we knew all the conference champions. We could have taken 8 conference champions and played a true playoff bracket to truly determine the winner. Imagine coaching staffs, athletes, and teams controlling their own destiny. Teams rewarded for winning their Conference and taking a seat at the after-party.
Here is the playoff bracket if you take the conference champions:
Hopefully, this will continue to move forward and real progress can be made, as the only way we can truly know who the actual champion is, is to first ensure that there are not multiple teams undefeated at the end of college football season. A playoff quite simply would achieve this.
For more information on the latest, please read all about it at Senator Orin Hatch's website.
