Congress to Tinker With BCS?

House representative Joe Barton sounds like a simple man from a simple town. But he's heading up a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee of Congress (it's their job to regulate America's sports industry) to conduct research on the Bowl Championship Series and hold hearings, if necessary, if the BCS Bowl selections cause the uproar they did last year.

And I couldn't be happier.

In a statement made last week, committee chairman Rep. Joe Barton said, "College football is ... a billion-dollar business that Congress cannot ignore." He also said that he plans to hold what he calls a "comprehensive review" of the BCS rankings system and the system for which different bowls put in bids for different collegiate teams.

Is anyone jumping up and down yet?

Congress is listening to us. Because college football is much more widespread than the 32 organizations that make up professional football, the individual members of Congress are more likely (and apparently are) more affected by the injustice many NCAA commissioners call the BCS rankings system.

I, for one, welcome Congress to intervene as much as they want. Tear the BCS apart, give us a playoff system and make December and January for college football what March is for college basketball.

I can see it now: "Can't wait for March Madness? Here's two months of nothing but college football to tide you over." Sure, it's not catchy, but who needs a tag-line with a product like that?

Can you imagine it? Take all the conference winners and runner-ups (and add in a few at-large bids, as well) and you've got about 24 teams. Give the top right teams a bye the first week and (for all you math majors) that gives us five weeks of football with the nation's top 24 teams. Now you've got a bracket that blows the NCAA basketball system out of the water.

Division II football has it. So does Division III. And when those games reach the championship, it's always a No. 5 battling a No. 2 until the last few seconds tick off the clock. The USC/Texas championship game last year was the best national championship game in college football I've ever watched. But think of all the others we could have done without: Florida's 52-20 rout over Florida State in 1996? Yawn. Miami's 37-14 domination of Nebraska in the 2002 Rose Bowl? Wake me when it's over.

Give me two teams that have gone five weeks through the gauntlet. Give me two squads of players that have stood up against the LSU's, the Ohio State's, and the Florida's and have earned the right to play one more game for the national championship. Just don't give me two teams that haven't played in four weeks and aren't in a battle-ready state of mind because they just took their Biology 101 final.

Please, Congress?