Obama’s call for college football playoff gains momentum on Hill

Lawmakers are backing President-elect Obama’s call for a college football playoff, drafting legislation to replace the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) despite objections from former House members who know college football best.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) has drafted a bill that seeks to prohibit the promotion, marketing or advertising of any national championship game that isn’t part of a playoff system. Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) has sponsored a measure that would declare the BCS an illegal restraint of trade. And Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told USA Today this week that he was planning a hearing, with college football officials as witnesses, on how to get the BCS to use a playoff.

{mosads}“ ‘National champion’ connotes best of the best,” Barton said. “With the BCS, it’s the best according to an average of 10 computers.”

All appear to picking up on what Obama has said on at least four separate occasions since November — that a playoff is necessary to replace the more arbitrary method put in place a decade ago that relies on polls and computer formulas to decide which two teams play for the title.

“If you’ve got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season, and many of them have one loss or two losses, there’s no clear, decisive winner,” Obama said on “60 Minutes” in November. “We should be creating a playoff system.”

Obama’s worries seemed to be justified last week, when the University of Florida Gators won the BCS national championship despite finishing with one loss. Three other teams — the University of Texas Longhorns, University of Southern California Trojans and the undefeated University of Utah Utes — finished with similar records but didn’t make the national championship game.

While bipartisan and bicameral support for a playoff builds, two former congressmen, who also happen to be former college football superstars, are defending the current system. Former Rep. Tom Osborne (R-Neb.), who coached three national championship teams at the University of Nebraska, said he likes the president-elect but finds him misguided on this issue.

“He’s obviously a very intelligent guy and has a lot on his plate,” Osborne said. “I think maybe he’s ranging a little bit far afield from his area of expertise. Those of us who deal with this every day have a certain perspective.”

Osborne, now Nebraska’s athletic director, noted that every game in a college football season is like a playoff, since one or two losses by a team are often enough to eliminate it from contention. He also wondered whether fans would travel to follow their team through the later rounds of a playoff.

“It’s not really in an area where the government belongs,” Osborne said. “Now, if the BCS system was corrupt and people were taking the money and doing criminal things or whatever, then yeah, Congress has a right to step in.”

Former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.), who quarterbacked the University of Oklahoma Sooners to two Orange Bowl wins in the 1980s, said that getting government involved might backfire. College football, he said, is best left to college presidents, athletic directors and football coaches.

Watts, who serves as a government affairs consultant for the BCS, said that instead of spending political capital on the current bowl system, Obama and Congress should do more to free up loans for small businesses.

“That’s just a whole lot more important to me then going public and saying we need a playoff system,” Watts said.

The BCS, which is run by the major college football schools and athletic conferences, doesn’t seem to be aching for reform. BCS coordinator John Swofford said in a reply to Obama in November that, “for now, our constituencies — and I know he understands constituencies — have settled on the current BCS system, which the majority believe is the best system yet to determine a national champion while also maintaining the college football regular season as the best and most meaningful in sports.”

Obama himself hasn’t talked about using government to force a change, and Osborne said he had no problems with Obama voicing his opinion. In fact, Osborne, who backed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the presidential election, said he is now an “Obama supporter.”

“I think all of us have to hope he’s successful and that whoever is president has full support,” Osborne said. “And I’m not in favor of trying to put him down.”

But if Obama wanted to press for a legislative fix, he could assemble an unlikely coalition. When Obama spoke to Barton after the election, Barton said that a college football playoff was one issue on which conservatives like himself could work with a Democratic administration, according to Barton’s account. Co-sponsors for the bills sponsored by Barton and Abercrombie include Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.), Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Mike Simpson (R-Idaho).

To counter the star power of Osborne and Watts, Obama could turn to the Democrats’ college football star. Rep. Heath Shuler (N.C.), a former quarterback for the University of Tennessee who was the 1993 Heisman Trophy runner-up, is an ardent supporter of a playoff. Shuler said Utah’s undefeated squad is a perfect example of a team that deserved an opportunity to play for the national championship but didn’t get it. He said he wanted to testify at any BCS hearing.

“When you represent a district that you feel that’s been left out, that’s your obligation to your constituents and your colleges and universities who don’t feel they’ve gotten a fair share,” he said.
Still, Shuler, a centrist Blue Dog, wouldn’t commit to backing a bill on the BCS, adding that a government fix could lead to a “slippery slope” of government intervention elsewhere. And he might use any face-time with Obama to discuss other matters.

“Certainly there’s a whole lot more on his plate than football,” Shuler said. “I’d rather talk about statutory pay-go.”